"Wait...say what? Vin gave her exactly what?"

Jim glanced across his studio at Adrian and didn't like the expression on the guy's face. Fucker seemed a little pale. "A ring," Jim said. "He gave her an engagement ring. Or at least, he said she left with it when he broke up with her."

The angel's puss tightened even more. "What was it made of."

"It was a diamond."

"Not the stone. What was the setting made of."

"I don't know. Platinum, I'd guess. Vin's the kind of guy who always goes top-drawer." As Eddie shook his head and cursed, Jim said, "Right, now is the happy moment when you tell me why the hell you both look like someone pissed in your gas tanks."

Adrian knocked off the rest of his beer and put the can down on the crappy kitchen table. "You know anything about black magic, my friend?"

Jim shook his head slowly, not at all surprised at the way the conversation was heading. "Why don't you enlighten me."

Adrian fished around the shoe box full of chess pieces and one by one took out all the pawns, lining them up. "Black magic is real. It exists and it's more prevalent than you think - and I'm not talking about singers biting off the heads of bats onstage, or a bunch of sixteen-year-olds getting stoned and playing games with an Ouija board, or so-called paranormal investigators jacking off their adrenal glands in some creepy old house. I'm talking about the real shit that will bite you on the ass hard. I'm talking about the way demons get to owning souls...I'm talking about spells and curses that not only work in this world, but the hereafter."

There was a heavy, dark pause of vast significance.

Which Jim broke by flashing his hands and belting out, "Booga-wooga!"

At least Eddie laughed. Adrian flipped Jim the bird and headed to the fridge for another beer. "Don't be an asshole," the guy snapped as he cracked a freshie.

"Oh, right, because two in this group would be overkill." Jim eased back on the bed so that he was leaning against the wall. "Look, I just felt the need to break the tension. Keep going."

"This is not a joke." When Jim nodded, Adrian took a deep one from the Bud can, parked it in his seat again, and seemed to be filing through the catalog of his mind. "There's a lot you're going to learn over time. So let's just call this lesson one. Demons collect shit from the people they're targeting. The more they get the better, and they keep it with them unless someone takes it back. Within this practice, there's like...think of it as a rating system. Gifts are worth more than shit they steal, and one of the strongest is a gift of true metal. Platinum will do it. Gold. Silver to a lesser extent. It's like a binding agent. And the more they get from a person, the stronger those bonds are."

Jim frowned. "To what end, though? I mean, what does it get Devina other than an account with PODS?"

"When she kills him, she can keep him with her for eternity - those binds translate into a kind of ownership, in effect. Demons are like parasites. They latch on and it can take them years to overcome someone's soul - but that's what they do. They get into the person's head and affect their choices, and with each passing day, week, month, they slowly invade the life that is led, corrupting, fouling, destroying. The soul dims from the infection, and when it gets to the right point, the demon steps in and a mortal event occurs. Your boy Vin's right at that critical point now. She's setting the events in motion, with the first being his arrest. It's a domino thing, and it's going to get worse fast. I've seen it too often for words."

"Jesus...Christ."

"Or very much not Him, as is the case."

As questions spun in Jim's head, he said, "But why Vin? Why was he chosen by her in the first place?"

"There has to be a place of entry. Think of it like getting tetanus from a rusty nail. There's an injury to the soul and the demon enters through the 'wound.'"

"What makes a wound?"

"Lots of shit. Every case is different." Adrian moved the pawns around to form the shape of an "X."

"But once the demon's in there, it has to be removed."

"You said Devina can't be killed."

"We can give her one fuck of an eviction notice, however." At this Eddie let out a low growl of approval. "And that's what we're going to teach you how to do." Well, wasn't that a lesson he was goddamn aching to learn.

Jim ran a hand through his hair and got up from the bed. "You know what? Vin said something about...Vin said when he was seventeen he went to, like, a fortune-teller/psychic kind of thing. He was getting these seizures where he was seeing the future and he was blind desperate for them to stop."

"What did she tell him to do?"

"He didn't go into it, but the seizures stopped until recently. He mentioned, though, that after he followed orders, so to speak, his luck changed altogether."

Adrian frowned. "We've got to find out what he did."

Eddie spoke up, "And we need to get the ring back. She's trying to lock him in even harder before she kills him and that is one hell of a strong bind."

"I know where she lives," Jim said. "Or I saw her go into a warehouse downtown."

Adrian got to his feet and so did Eddie. "Then let's do a little breaking and entering, shall we?" Ad said, scooping up the pawns and putting them back in the box. After he finished his beer, he cracked his knuckles. "Last fight I had with the bitch ended way too soon."

Eddie rolled his eyes and glanced at Jim. "It was back in the Middle Ages and he still hasn't gotten over it."

"Why so long ago?"

"We got put on ice," Eddie said. "We were a little more fallen than the bosses were comfortable with."

Adrian grinned like a motherfucker. "As I mentioned, I like the ladies."

"Usually in pairs." Eddie put Dog down and stroked his ears. "We'll be back, Dog." Dog didn't seem happy with the parting and began circling all of the feet in the room, including the couch's - which seemed to suggest he thought the piece of furniture was on backup. Not exactly what Jim had in mind.

Nope, he was going in with something a little more powerful.

Going over to the empty bookshelves in the far corner, he pulled out a black duffel bag and unzipped the thing, revealing a stainless-steel case that was about four feet by three feet. Running his forefinger over its keypad, he released the lock and opened the top. Inside, the three guns that were packed in egg padding caught no light whatsoever on their matte gray finishes and he left the assault rifle where it was. Of the pair of SIGs, the grips of which had been custom-designed for him, he took the one that fit his right palm.

Adrian shook his head, as if the auto-loader was nothing more than a squirt gun. "Just what do you think you're going to do with that piece of metal there, Dirty Harry?"

"It's my safety blanket, how 'bout that."

Jim put the gun through a quick check, locked up the briefcase, and stashed the duffel. The ammo was behind the cans in the cabinets over the sink, and he took enough to fill the clip. "You can't shoot her with that," Eddie said softly.

"No offense - but until I see it, I'm not going to believe it."

"And that is why you will fail."

Adrian cursed and hit the door. "Great, you've got him channeling Yoda again. Can we get moving before he levitates my fucking bike?"

As Jim locked things up and they all went down the stairs, Dog took up res on the back of the couch, and watched them out the window. He pawed at the glass a little, like he was protesting the fact that he'd been left out of the action.

"Let's take my truck," Jim said as he hit the gravel. "Less noise."

"And it has a radio, right?" With tragic concentration, Adrian started warming up his voice, sounding like a moose being backstroked by a cheese grater.

Jim shook his head at Eddie as doors were opened. "How do you stand the racket?"

"Selective deafness."

"Teach me, master."

The trip into town lasted about four hundred years - largely due to the fact that Adrian found the classic rock station: Van Halen's "Panama" had never sounded so bad, but that was nothing compared to what happened to Meat Loaf's "I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)."

Which evidently referred to Adrian's shutting his piehole.

When they got to the warehouse district, Jim put the kibosh on Ad's crap-aoke, and he'd never been so glad to work a volume button. "The building is two streets over."

"There's a parking space," Eddie said, pointing to the left.

After they ditched the F-150, they walked down a block, hung a rightie, and what do you know -  once again, timing was everything. Just as they rounded the corner, a taxi rolled to a stop in front of the door Devina had disappeared into before.

The three ducked for cover and a moment later the taxi rolled past with Devina in the backseat putting lipstick on with a compact mirror in her hand.

"She never does anything without a reason," Adrian said softly. "That's one thing you can take to the bank. Anything that comes out of her mouth is almost always a lie, but her actions...always a reason. We need to get in, find that ring and get out fast."

Moving quickly, they went over to the double doors, pulled them open, and entered a vestibule that had as much architectural nuance as a meat locker: Floor was concrete, walls were whitewashed, and the space was colder than the outside air. The only fixture it had, aside from an industrial-style ceiling light, was a row of five stainless-steel mailboxes and an intercom with a list of five names. Devina Avale was number five.

Unfortunately, the inside set of doors was secured by a dead bolt, but Jim gave it a yank anyway. "We could always wait until someone - "

Adrian walked over, grabbed the handle, and pulled one half wide without missing a beat.

"Or you could just open the fucker," Jim said wryly.

Ad flashed his glowing palm and grinned. "I'm good with my hands."

"Better than with your vocal cords, clearly."

He hated working.

Hated spending his days taking ungrateful people around Caldwell in a taxi that smelled like whatever the last driver had had to eat. But the practicalities of life had to be met, and besides, at least the object of his affection tended to stay home during daylight hours.

There was also his ignore policy. He didn't look at his customers, refused to help with luggage, and never talked more than was absolutely necessary. It was a good way to go - especially given what his nightly pursuits had been like lately: No reason to risk triggering someone's dim memory. You never knew what people were likely to recall from a crime scene.

Another lesson he'd learned the hard way.

"How's my lipstick."

At the sound of the female voice, his hands tightened on the wheel. He didn't give a shit about what some stupid woman's mouth looked like.

"I asked you...how is my lipstick." The tone was sharper now and made his palms squeeze down even harder on the wheel.

Before she repeated the demand and he got nasty, he glared into the rearview mirror. If whatever bitch was in the back expected him to -

Black eyes grabbed him and held him as sure as if she'd leaned forward and put him in a headlock. And then he sensed her reaching into him and...

"My lipstick," she said, with deliberate, flaring pronunciation.

He did a quick check on the street ahead, which was clear to the traffic light two blocks ahead, and went right back to the rearview. "Ah...it looks good."

With a deliberate stroke of her manicured forefinger, she wiped the line of her lower lip, then pursed her mouth and released.

"You're a religious man, I see," she murmured, closing her compact.

He glanced at the cross that was glued to the dashboard. "Not my cab."

"Oh." She brushed her hair back and kept staring at him.

It didn't take long before he felt like the heater had been turned on high, and he even double-checked to see if the blower was working overtime. No. She was just a beautiful woman who was looking at him like he was something. Which happened about as often as -

"What's your name," she whispered.

Tongue-tied, and abruptly unsure of the answer, he pointed to the cabbie license that had his picture on it. Reading what was written, he said, "Saul. Saul Weaver."

"Nice name."

As they came up to the red light at the intersection, he braked, and the instant the taxi was at a full stop, he was back looking into the rear...view...mirror...

The irises of her eyes expanded until there was no white part to contrast with the dense black -  and though that should have been the kind of thing to leave him screaming, he felt like liquid orgasm had taken the place of the blood in his veins.

Pleasure soared through him, lifting him up even as he remained on the seat of the taxi, invading him even as his skin remained intact, owning him though there was no tangible leash between them.

"Saul," the woman said, her voice morphing into something that was both deep as a man's and breathy as a woman's. "I know what you want."

Saul swallowed hard and heard his voice come from a long distance. "You do?"

"And I know how you can get it."

"You...do?"

"Pull over into that alley, Saul." With that, she opened her coat, flashing a skintight white blouse that showed her nipples clear as if nothing covered them. "Pull over, Saul, and let me tell you what you need to do."

With a wrench of the wheel, he shot into the shadows between two high buildings and threw the taxi in park. As he turned around to look at her, he was utterly captivated: However arresting her eyes were in the mirror, the rest of her more than lived up to the hype. She was...unreal, and not just because of how beautiful she was. Staring into those black pits, he was fully accepted, fully understood, and he knew without a doubt that he would find what he was seeking with her. She had his answers.

"Please...tell me."

"Come back here, Saul." The woman trolled her manicured fingers down her long neck to her cleavage. "And let me in."

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