From Hell (2 page)

“
Leave my whores
alone.”

I turned to see a mule of
man storming toward me. His clenched hands were meaty hams at the
ends of his long jacket sleeves. Fury raged in his eyes, glimmers
of brightness visible despite the gloom. This was, no doubt,
the
Wally
the
woman had called for.

“
Easy, big fella. Wally,
is it?” I raised my hands, palms up, as he approached. The rain
parted at his momentum, sheets rolling off his bulk. “It was just a
mistake. I meant no harm.”

Wally walked right into my personal
space and shoved me. “Damn right it was a mistake,
bloke.”

I stumbled back a few feet but kept my
balance. “Come on now, that’s not necessary.” The shrill blast of a
whistle sounded nearby, but if Mister Charming heard it, he didn’t
seem to care.

“
You’re not touching my
girls, you hear me?” He advanced with fists at the
ready.

“
Heard you the first time,
buddy.” This wasn’t what I was here for. Lucifer would be pissed if
I fucked things up this early, and Baalth would laugh his ‘I told
you so’ ass off. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to knock your girl
over.” Another whistle sounded in the darkness, this one even
closer than the last. The bobbies were on their way. That was the
last thing I needed, and Wally didn’t look like he was planning on
letting me off the hook.

Done being polite, I did what I do
best. I resorted to violence.

Muted voices grew in the distance as I
reached out and grabbed a handful of Wally’s shirt and spun him
into the wall. Something sharp stabbed into my palm as he hit with
a grunt, but I ignored. His eyes went wide, and then narrowed in a
flash, the instinct to stomp me bloody sinking in to his lizard
brain. I beat him to it. A quick uppercut clacked his teeth
together. He wobbled, and I was left holding all of his weight as
he went out.

“
Son of a—” The thing
digging into my hand only got worse, so I let big boy go before I
did any more damage to myself. He slumped to the sidewalk. My palm
itched as the tiny wounds stitched together.

I looked down at the unconscious pimp
while my hand throbbed. Dots of red colored his shirt, the rain
blurring them to soft pink. Two sharp points had ripped through the
material, silver shining even in the dim light. It was a necklace;
a star of some kind. Another whistle sounded at my back. This one
was much closer, and I could pick out words in the approaching
chorus of noise. It was time to go.

Heavy booted steps slapped the
sidewalk just as I reached another alley and ducked into it. Shouts
rang out at my back followed by a hail of screeching whistles.
They’d seen me. Cursing under my breath, I ran full out as the yips
of hounds sang an out of key serenade. I sighed and stuffed my hand
in my jacket pocket. If the dogs caught my scent, I’d be forced to
whip out my own dog; the Webley Bull Dog I’d carted up from Hell.
The pistol was a last resort, but I was glad to have it. The cold
steel was comforting.

Certain it was stupid to
even
think
about
using the gun, I pulled my fingers from the grip and ran on,
pushing even harder to elude the bobbies and their pets. I didn’t
worry about where I was going, only that I kept moving. The rain
and dark streets conspired to aid me. Shadows swirled about as I
splashed through narrow alleys and across empty streets. The fear
of an unrepentant killer and a caravan of police dredging the
district had chased the last of the reprobates indoors, which I
didn’t mind at all. It made it easier to get away
unseen.

I bolted out of an alley and started
down a quiet street made up of dozens of tiny apartments stacked
like stones one on top of another. They looked as though a strong
wind might knock them down, cracked, gray mortar running between
the rooms, worn by the weather and years. The subtle scent of
refuse joined the acrid waft of coal smoke that lingered in the
air. Though the cold and rain had had dulled the bite of its
stench, there was no mistaking the bitter stink of poverty. This
was where the killer preyed.

The sound of police still echoing
through the night, I ran down yet another block of tenement homes
and headed deeper into the maze of the East End. As I passed a dark
stairwell that led to cavernous apartments beneath the street
level, a weird tingle of energy hit me. Faint, little more than a
whisper in a loud room, the hair on the back of my neck stood at
attention for an instant, and then the feeling was gone. I glanced
at the steep stairs but saw nothing to assign the strange sensation
to. No time to worry about it, I kept running.

Once I was far enough from the police
to have lost the dogs in the rain, I slipped between two of the
taller buildings nearby and scampered up one of the thick drainage
pipes that ran the length of the wall. It creaked and groaned as I
climbed, threatening to dump me on my ass, but it held. A moment
later I was on the roof. There, I stepped away from the ledge and
dropped to a seat against a smoking chimney. The bricks were warm
against my back. It felt good after slogging through the rain for
so long. I hunkered down, reveling in the heat, and listened for
the hounds. They were far enough off that I could take a moment to
catch my breath.

“
Why am I not surprised to
find you running from the police?” a sharp voice asked over my
shoulder.

My heart slammed into my ribcage, and
I scrambled for my gun. I growled and left it in my pocket when I
saw who’d scared my sphincter shut.

My cousin Scarlett winked at me as she
stepped from behind the chimney.

Three

“
Do you have to sneak up
on me all the damn time?” I asked once I was sure I could talk
without squeaking. “I’m beginning to think you hate me.”

“
Hate?” Scarlett shook her
head. “Hate is such a strong word, Frank. I could never
hate
you; we’re family,
after all, right?”

I chuckled imagining all
the things she
could
think of me, knowing not very many of them would be nice. On
the other hand, there were a hell of a lot of things I thought of
Scarlett, the vast majority of which ended up with her in a muzzle,
hogtied, and screaming the Almighty’s name in glorious
rapture.

Tall and lithe, Scarlett
was every demon’s wet dream, with me being no exception. It didn’t
matter we were cousins. Growing up in Hell, a guy learned pretty
quickly to take what pleasures he could wherever he could, the
more
sinful
the
better. This ranked up there nicely with coveting thy neighbor and
carnal affairs with somebody else’s goat.

And while Scarlett was dressed in
loose fitting breeches and a shirt she’d tucked into her thick
leather belt, there was no hiding the curves God had given her. She
was an angel, and I mean that literally; one of God’s chosen. She
made her home in Heaven alongside the rest of the Choir. She had
wings and everything; well, they were a psychic manifestation of
her power, but they were still wings.

“
My face is up here,” she
said, putting her hand in front of her chest and pointing
upward.

I sighed and followed her finger. The
green seas of her eyes glared at me. They were very expressive when
she was angry, which was most of the time I was around.

“
What are you doing
here?”

“
I was sent to find a
killer.” Her eyes narrowed, her gaze trailing from my feet back to
my face in a casual sweep. Fingers twitched near the twin, short
blades she wore at her hips. “How fortunate to have found one so
soon.”

“
Whoa there, Sherlock. It
seems your detective skills could use some sharpening.” It wasn’t
the first time Scarlett and I had duked it out over some stupid
misunderstanding, and I didn’t figure it would be the last, so I
set my feet just in case she came at me. When it came to emotional
overreaction, Scarlett made me look like the mature one. “Lucifer
sent me to find the killer, too.”

“
I’m supposed to believe
our dear uncle has nothing to do with any of this?” Scarlett shook
her head. “I can’t believe that, Frank. The butcher signed one of
his letters ‘From Hell.’”

“
And you think Lucifer
would attach his name to something as brazen as these murders?” I
could tell by the look on her face, she did. It’s a good thing
she’s pretty. “Seriously, woman, Hell isn’t behind any of this. I
promise that.”

“
You promise? Oh, okay.
Our mistake.” Scarlett shrugged and turned away, her hair trailing
her like a wild mane. I stared at her for a moment, one eyebrow
raised, too stunned to even think about checking out her ass before
she spun back around. She chuckled.

“
Of course you’re not
leaving.” I sighed. What had started as an annoying quest for a
killer had degenerated into a pissing match between Heaven and Hell
with me getting the golden end of the shaft. “Look, Scarlett, if
you’re gonna be elbow-deep up my ass, we need to set some rules
down.”

“
First off, ewwww.” Her
upper lip peeled back in a disgusted sneer. “Second, Metatron sent
me here to find out what Hell has to do with this
Ripper
and to ensure the
killings end. I don’t take orders from you and we aren’t setting
terms as to
m
y
mission.”

“
I don’t expect you to
take orders, but we can’t just go stomping across London, going
door-to-door looking for Jack the fucking Ripper or whatever the
hell the guy wants to be called.” I mimed knocking. “Pardon me,
ma’am, but have you seen a dashing murderer here about lately?
Loves romance, candlelight dinners, late night strolls, and cutting
women’s uteri out.”

Scarlett shivered, crossing her arms
to hide it. “That’s not funny, Frank.”

“
It’s not meant to be.” I
squeezed the bridge of my nose in hopes of staving off the headache
that always seemed to accompany Scarlett’s presence. “As much as
you want to put this on Hell and be done with it all, it’s not
gonna be that easy. This killer has been operating for months and
getting away with it. He’s not gonna slip up or give himself away
just because we’re here.”

She grunted. “Then what
are
we
going to
do?”

At least she was playing
nice now. Well, as nice as she was capable of. I know she didn’t
really believe
I
had anything to with this, we’d known each other too long for
that, but I had no doubt she still felt Hell—or more specifically,
Lucifer or one of his cronies—was behind it all.

Her father, Royce, was one of
Lucifer’s three siblings. Seeing how he’d raped an angel, which
resulted in Scarlett’s birth, that didn’t exactly give her much
faith in her southern relatives by default. Can’t say I blame her
any, but for what it’s worth, Uncle Lou is the white sheep in the
family. He’s certainly got his faults, but between his
siblings—Royce, Reann, and the piece of shit scumbag that was my
sperm donor—Lucifer is a saint.

“
Well, it’s Friday night
and most of the killer’s attacks have been on a weekend, as well as
on hookers, so I suggest we find out where the more secluded of the
women hang out and see what we can see.”

“
You mean something like
the group you scared off before beating their pimp
unconscious?”

“
Uh, yeah…just like them.”
I hated when she made sense.

She sighed. “You don’t have a better
plan than hang out and watch prostitutes?”

I looked up at the dark clouds and let
the rain fall over my face. Lucifer didn’t know anything more about
the killer than Metatron did, which left us all out in the dark.
Even with as often as Hell and Heaven played in the mortal sandbox,
it wasn’t like they understood the humans or could read their minds
or anything. Free will left a lot of room between the lines of
black and white pool the supernaturals played in. It was a
condition neither angels nor demons could entirely fathom. While
we—demons, that is—had a lot of room to maneuver, we were all bound
to the rules of the universe we inhabited. In the end, we’re all
pawns from one side or the other, the Almighty and Uncle Lou
nudging us into motion as they saw fit. Those two as far from human
as possible, the machinations of gods and men have never quite
synched up.

“
No, not really,” I
admitted as I lowered my face and let the trickles of water roll
down my cheeks. Come morning, I could run off and have a chat with
my uncle’s contact but until then, it looked like were spending the
night in the downpour searching for a needle in a wet and drippy
haystack. “We’re just gonna have to get lucky.”

Scarlett shook her head,
water flying off her hair in glistening drops. “The very last
thing
you’re
going to do is get lucky, Frank.” She turned and went to the
edge of the building, peering over the ledge at the street below.
The
scree
of
whistles and the barks of dogs were whispers in the darkness. The
bobbies had lost the trail.

A smile split my cheeks as I watched
Scarlett. I might not be getting lucky, but at least I had a room
with a view.