The Brimstone Deception Read online

  Right now, Kylie O’Hara was doing the rounds of the local news programs as the founder of the internationally known website hoaxbusters.com. She’d made a name for herself online and beyond as a debunker of the supernatural. Heck, Syfy was still after her to host her own show. However, her “secret identity” job was SPI’s director of media and public relations. The goal of both of her jobs was to have a mundane explanation for supernatural events and creatures. With the latest in CGI technology available to any kid with a computer, exposing anyone looking for their fifteen minutes of fame had never been easier. That being said, those photos of the latest victim hadn’t been faked. Kylie had readily confirmed that. However, she’d added that they didn’t need to be faked to be explained. There was a killer on the loose in New York. Unfortunately, that was nothing new. This one simply limited its work to a subset of criminals, and for some reason known only to it, carried a branding iron and liked to cut out hearts. That didn’t indicate supernatural, just a deeply disturbed individual.

  Kylie was doing a fine job of doing her job. It’d be nice if Ian and I could say the same. A board full of the names of dead drug dealers didn’t equal success; it just meant we were organized. Success meant putting that demon lord and his mage partner permanently out of business.

  Our friendly neighborhood source inside the NYPD’s drug enforcement unit, Detective Fred Ash, stopped by to share what they knew with us. The NYPD didn’t know about SPI, but with supernaturals on the force, we had eyes and ears where we needed them. What Fred’s eyes and ears had seen and heard in the last few hours was a bombshell to us; like we hadn’t had enough of those ourselves.

  Ian was incredulous. “They want to do what?”

  I was a mite stunned myself.

  The NYPD was going to put the city’s top drug lords and ladies under protective custody.

  “Yeah, protecting the people who no one really minds seeing dead,” Fred told us. “Makes all kinds of sense. They’re all drug-dealing, murdering, lowlife scum. But apparently they’re our drug-dealing, murdering, lowlife scum. Most importantly, drug kingpins are taxpayers, too. Taxpayers who haven’t been convicted of a crime. In the eyes of the law that makes them innocent taxpayers. Gotta protect all of them.” Fred took another bite of doughnut. “This case is just chock full of irony.”

  Before coming over for a fact-sharing session with us, Fred had made a Krispy Kreme run. And before coming to the bull pen, he’d taken two raspberry-filled doughnuts up to Bert in his office. Our necromancer didn’t want to let on, but he still wasn’t back in fighting shape from the trap the murderer had set in what had been left of Sar Gedeon’s mind. The favorite doughnut of the guy who worked with dead people was filled with gooey red stuff. Go figure.

  For a Southerner like myself, Krispy Kremes were the holy grail of doughnuts. And when the “HOT” light on the sign was lit, that meant the sugary-glazed goodness had just come out of the oven. The first couple of bites would melt in your mouth. In my family, we held to the rule that the fresher the doughnut, the fewer calories they had. Fluffy when passing the lips, no fat on the hips.

  I knew it wasn’t true, but I’d never let scientific facts get in the way of enjoying a good doughnut.

  I snagged a chocolate-iced one before they got gone. “I’d ask if you were pulling our leg, but I know you’re not.”

  “I think the big problem with the city hall people is the way the city’s not-so-law-abiding citizens are getting killed,” Fred noted. “Chest branded, heart cut out, stink of hellfire and brimstone.”

  “Technically, it’s just brimstone,” I said. “Hellfire doesn’t stink.” Jeez, I was starting to sound like Marty.

  “Whatever. It’s our job to make it stop. Now.”

  In addition to doughnuts, Fred had brought news of another murder. It had been committed on a yacht in the Hudson River. The NYPD had gotten to that one first, too. In our defense, the NYPD had an advantage—we didn’t have patrol boats on the rivers and in the harbor. And screams coming from an obscenely expensive mega-yacht wasn’t something a patrol boat full of cops was likely to ignore.

  It’d been a vampire. A high-ranking member of the Báthory family. Celeste Báthory had gotten scared and taken refuge on her yacht. She obviously hadn’t heard that portals can be opened anywhere.

  That murder scene had a deviation from the others—the heart hadn’t been stolen and/or eaten; the vampire’s heart had been staked to the teak wood floor next to her body.

  We could now add “dark sense of humor” to the murders’ descriptions.

  “Báthory’s people had checked every square inch of that boat,” Fred told us. “There was no one there but them. One swears Celeste Báthory had him check her cabin. Hell, I think she’d have had him looking under the bed if the thing had an underneath. Half an hour later, no sounds at all, the guard posted outside her door saw blood soaking the carpet under the door. Didn’t hear a peep, no struggle, nothing.”

  “He smell sulfur?” Ian asked.

  “Yeah, seemed to be coming from under the door. That’s what made him look down. Wards had been set and locked. She even had battle mages on board, real heavyweights. Likewise, they didn’t hear or sense a thing.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah, our gruesome twosome are good. They’ve got the local pharmaceutical distributors about to crap themselves at seeing their own shadows. Whatever they do to protect themselves, it’s not enough. By the time Báthory’s boys got through that door, it was all over except the cleanup—and according to our guys that was some cleanup.” He dug a manila folder out of his messenger bag. “I brought you two eight by ten glossies of Celeste for your board—undead and permanently dead.” Fred read the “bitch slapped” comment next to the asterisk and chuckled. “Who wrote that?”

  I raised the hand not holding the doughnut.

  “I like it,” he said.

  “My journalism degree at work.”

  “Your mom would be proud.”

  “I think so.” I also thought I was getting the hang of using dark cop humor to relieve tension. Fred Ash was my spirit animal. Besides, Bert wouldn’t mind; he’d laugh his ass off. In fact, I’d written it for him.

  Ian added the photos to our board. “You’re a sick man, Fred.” He gave me a look. “And you’re an enabler.”

  “Never claimed to be anything else,” Fred said.

  I popped the last bite of doughnut in my mouth. “Ditto.”

  “So what’d the first responders have to say about the heart staked to the floor?” Ian asked.

  “With that and her fangs, their first thought was vampire,” Fred said. “Their second thought was there’s no such thing as vampires, and that Celeste must have had some kinky dental work done. My momma—and my first sergeant—always said that first impressions are important. Our boys and girls should’ve gone with what their gut was telling them they were seeing.”

  “They can’t charge something with murder that doesn’t exist,” Ian noted. “And as far as the NYPD is concerned, demons don’t exist.”

  Fred snorted. “Yeah, I’d like to see my precinct try to put one of those in the holding tank.”

  “They can try to protect those people all they want,” Ian continued. “It’s not going to do any good, even if they believed the reason why. I wish them luck. If they could stop the killings, more power to them. But they won’t because they can’t. They can’t because their minds won’t let them believe. Their lizard brains know what’s happening, but then they’ll look at the modern city they live in and the primitive truth they know in their gut gets pushed aside. They’re looking for mundane explanations, and this is magic, black and as dirty as I’ve ever heard of.”

  Fred waved his second doughnut. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re preachin’ to the choir. The killer is a dark mage with a demon sidekick, who’s using a portal to get in and out, so my brother and sister officers are gonna be seriously frustrated. The classic murder in a locked room. Damned media’s
already calling it the perfect crime.”

  The tabloids like the Informer, which I used to work for, had gotten it right. Well, partially. Demons were involved, and while it was ironic that all of the victims were involved in the illegal drug trade, there was nothing divine about the retribution. Though it would be nice if God would do a little judicious smiting every now and then. Glean out the troublemakers. The world would be a better place for the rest of us.

  “You can count us among the frustrated,” Ian was saying. “With your guys tailing our most likely future victims, we can’t do the same ourselves. Though it’s not like there’s much else we’ve been able to do.”

  “Normally multiple vics killed in a freaky way means serial killer,” Fred noted. “Make those vics connected to some of the biggest names in the city’s drug trade, and the folks downtown think we’re seeing the beginnings of a drug turf war. New dealers come in, want a slice of the business for themselves, our existing drug lords and ladies say hell no, and the newcomers start making examples to get them to change their minds. Which is surprisingly close to the truth except it’s the established lords and ladies who want a piece of the newcomers’ action.”

  The NYPD had had Kela Dupari’s home and office under tight surveillance due to an ongoing investigation that had nothing to do with Brimstone. When her body was discovered in her office with the heart missing and the chest branded, all of the doors and windows had been locked. The surveillance cameras from the building showed that no one other than Kela Dupari had entered or left the office.

  The NYPD was stumped, embarrassed, and getting pissed.

  We were just pissed.

  The NYPD thought the killings were a new cartel moving in to make a name for themselves by simultaneously slaughtering the kingpins while scaring the bejeezus out of the survivors—or as we were beginning to think of them, “future heart donors.”

  Aside from the demon and actual Hell elements, Fred was right, they’d pretty much hit the nail on the head.

  19

  WHEN Dr. Cheban and her team released their final report two hours later, I seriously doubt there was any high-fiving in the lab.

  It was bad enough that one of the ingredients in Brimstone was actual brimstone from Hell, but it was the form of the brimstone that turned just another evening at SPI into all hands on deck.

  At least the hands experienced with portals and demons—finding the former and battling the latter.

  The brimstone in the drug had been combined with the other ingredients while still in its molten state. Martin DiMatteo’s samples were rocks, dried and old. We were dealing with brimstone fresh from Hell itself.

  According to Marty, fresh, molten brimstone could be obtained from only one location.

  We had a Hellpit open somewhere under New York.

  Some people would say that New York was the modern equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah, and more than deserved to have a Hellpit gaping open under it, and the sooner it fell in, the better for everyone else. Others would argue that dishonor went to Las Vegas. I’d have to disagree with both. The majority of New Yorkers were the best folks you’d ever want to meet. I’d never been to Vegas, but since the place had gone and gotten itself Disneyfied, I figured they were out of the running.

  Regardless of how those who didn’t live in New York felt about the Big Apple, it didn’t need or deserve to be swallowed into the bowels of Hell.

  Our job was still the same.

  Find it and close it—without anyone finding out.

  And ensure that what happens in a Hellpit, stays in a Hellpit.

  We’d had food sent up from the cafeteria, with Martin DiMatteo hosting a Lunch ’n’ Learn on Hell and demons. Though since it was eight o’clock at night, it was dinner, but the concept was the same. Most of us hadn’t had time for dinner yet, and with the Hellpit news, we were going to sit down and eat while we could. Fred had had to leave, but we promised to fill him in on what was said and decided.

  “I know you say there is a Hellpit,” I was saying to Martin DiMatteo. “And it’s here.”

  “Correct.”

  “The demon lord and his mage partner are launching their attacks here through a portal from a dimension close to Hell, because there’s no direct access to our dimension from Hell.”

  “Also correct.”

  “Then why can’t the Hellpit be physically located in the same neighboring dimension where they’re launching their attacks from rather than here, and the brimstone brought in through a portal? I’m not doubting your expertise,” I hurried to add. “I just want to understand what’s going on and why.”

  “Never apologize for seeking knowledge, Agent Fraser.”

  Our director of demonology didn’t seem to be offended. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’d just asked him to talk about his favorite topic; no one minded doing that. Though asking did give me a bit of an unpleasant flashback to asking Bert for an explanation of what he’d been about to do with Sar Gedeon’s corpse. I didn’t like what I’d heard and seen then, and I didn’t think I was going to be too fond of Marty’s explanation, either. But I needed to know; we all did.

  “Dr. Cheban reported that her team’s analysis of the drug showed the chemical composition to be too complex to have been manufactured in any dimension with direct access to Hell. Therefore, it was manufactured here. In order to be manufactured here, the molten brimstone has to be harvested here. The magic necessary for creating, stabilizing, and maintaining a portal would have an undesirable side effect on any molten brimstone being brought through a portal, thickening it enough to be rendered unusable for the drug manufacturers’ purpose.”

  I think my mouth might have been standing open. “How do you know these things?”

  DiMatteo actually looked a little embarrassed. “I have tried to bring molten brimstone back with me on more than one excursion.”

  “To Hell and back.”

  “Yes. Passing through the two portals I had to navigate to get home turned my sample into a substance that can only be described as warm goo. Even when I took every precaution and put the samples in a container that can withstand a nuclear blast.”

  “That’s one heck of a thermos,” I muttered.

  “Yes, it was,” DiMatteo readily agreed. “Since demons can’t gain direct access to our dimension from Hell, they have to go through portals to get to a dimension closer to ours, and then from there to here. But even then, only certain sizes and classes of demons can get through. Dimensions that can be accessed directly from Hell aren’t nice places to begin with. I’ve called the ones you experienced yesterday ‘anterooms,’ which is an accurate description. These dimensions are similar enough to Hell in terms of temperature, air composition, and pressure that a portal between the two can be opened with relative ease. The dimensions that can open directly into ours—the elf and goblin realm, for example—are near perfect matches for our own. All of that being said, there are times during the year when the barriers between all of the dimensions are at their thinnest. We just experienced one of those, namely All Hallows’ Eve.”

  “How long do you think the Hellpit has been open?” Ian asked.

  “The optimal time to open one is at a combination of a full moon and a time like All Hallows’ Eve, when our enterprising drug manufacturers wouldn’t have had to work quite so hard.”

  “I thought you’d said there’s no direct access to Hell from here,” I said. “Then again, when you told me, I’d just hit my head on concrete.”

  “You’re correct, Agent Fraser. There is no direct access from Hell to here. From here to Hell is another matter.”

  “You’re saying that some dumbass on our side dug a pit to Hell?” Roy Benoit was the commander of one of SPI’s two commando teams. He was proud to be from the Louisiana swamps, from a long line of gator hunters, and a retired Army Ranger. Though according to Roy, Rangers not only didn’t surrender, they never retired.

  “Not dumb, Commander Benoit,” DiMatteo replied. “Greedy. In
all likelihood, our demon lord offered them access to fresh brimstone. They had the other ingredients. All they needed was the brimstone. They either didn’t know—or didn’t care—that if a Hellpit is ever fully opened, it’s open permanently, and any demon that ever wanted to come to our dimension and belly up to the all-you-can-eat human buffet could do just that. Since New York has yet to be overrun by demons, we obviously haven’t reached that point yet.”

  “So the last time there was a Hellpit here,” Roy began, “how did they get rid of it?”

  “First of all, it’s not a simple matter to open a Hellpit. There have only been a few documented instances, none of which have ever reached a state of being fully open. The first Hellpit was opened in the Gobi Desert in Mongolia in the 1320s. A Mongolian sorcerer sought the advice of a demon to destroy a rival tribe. The demon instructed him on how to conjure a small Hellpit in return for the sorcerer’s soul after death, as well as those of his tribesmen. The sorcerer opened the Hellpit, the promised ‘help’ emerged, and the sorcerer closed it again. What emerged from that pit killed the rival tribe within a matter of days—then did the same to the sorcerer and his tribe, netting the demon his promised souls a lot sooner than the sorcerer had anticipated.” DiMatteo paused uncomfortably. “The creatures were tiny, microscopically so. They spread throughout Mongolia to the Silk Road, and from there onto the fleas infesting the rats on merchant ships bound for Europe.”

  Holy. Crap.

  Roy was incredulous. “The Black Plague was caused by demons? I’ve heard a lot in my time, but—”