Rick clumped heavily to a halt at the top of the stairs, panting heavily. The six flights of stairs was bad enough once, never mind three times in a row.

By now, the neighbours had retired back to their own apartments, and the dutiful Officer Spitz was standing outside the late Miss Finnegan's door.

'Oh, 'ello again sir. Forget something?'

Cole waved a hand dismissively as he caught his breath before striding over.

'Just a... minor epiphany. Pop the door for us, Officer. Need another look at the vic.'

The officer looked uncomfortable for a moment, scratching his chin.

'About that, sir... what department did you say you was part of again?'

Cole glared at him. A mildly magic-resistant copper had not been on his list of expectations for the day...

'Internal Affairs, Spitz. And I'll remind you that interfering in a detective's duty can get you written up - and that's if the Captain's not in a foul mood.' he added, remembering that the chap in charge of this district had a reputably short temper.

'See, that's the thing, sir - I reckon he'd be in a far fouler one if'n I let someone onto a crime scene without due reason. What's Internal Affairs got to worry about with a murder, sir? Surely it's an 'omicide matter.' said Spitz, staring the Detective down.

Cole pinched the bridge of his nose.

'Fine. Here. Write my badge number down and report it yourself.' Cole said, pulling his wallet from his pocket and flicking it open. Spitz glanced at it, and froze. Cole snapped it back shut, took the key from the now paralyzed officer's pocket, and let himself back in.

He didn't take much pride in enchanting someone who was, in all fairness, just trying to do his duty but residual magical traces didn't stick around long, and he had little and less time to argue. It wouldn't last long - especially against a Resistant like Spitz - but he didn't need long.

Cole squatted down next to the late Miss Finnegan's cooling cadaver and pulled on a rubber glove. Magic was all well and good, but sometimes you couldn't beat good old manmade protections.

Leaning in, he examined the wound on the body's back more closely. Now that he looked at it, it was less like an incision and more like...

'...an exit wound.' he said aloud.

'Shit.' said the Detective, leaning in and prying the dead flesh aside. 'Git, I need you.'

With a puff of acrid smoke and a grumbling curse, the imp appeared, squatting cross-legged on the late Miss Finnegan's head.

'Why the bloody 'ell are we back 'ere again?' he griped, glancing around the musty apartment.

'Because I'm an idiot and you're lazy, that's why.'

Git made to complain, before huffing derisively and looking to the scene before him.

'So what's the problem? Don't look like nothin's changed.'

'Nothing has changed, but we weren't looking in the right place. Look here, inside the wound.'

Git grumbled as he dragged himself to his feet and padded the few imp-sized steps over to lean over the damaged flesh.

'Aw, bugger me.'

'Tell me what you see, Git.'

The imp snorted. 'Why don't'cha look properly for yourself and tell me, oh great Detective?'

'Because it gives me a bloody migraine, Git; that's why I called for your indignant arse. Now tell me, before it fades.'

Git sighed and reached a clawed hand into the wound, extracting something only he could clearly see. To Cole's eyes, the air between his fingers seemed to shimmer and warp slightly. He recoiled gently as the Imp bit at whatever it was, smacking its tongue before spitting a puff of ash and cinder to one side.

'Yup. Coccoon.'

Cole swore again and leant back on his haunches.

'Demon or Daemon?'

'Daemon. Too stringy to be one o' ours.'

Cole swore a third time.

'The last thing I bloody well need...'

'What is?'

Cole threw his hands in the air as he stood up.

'Any of this! All I know for sure now is that there's a larval Daemon wandering the streets of London doing who knows what.'

'What the bleedin' hell is that?!'

Cole swung on his heel to see Spitz, free of the paralysis, staring at Git.

'Oh, piss. See ya!' Git snapped, before vanishing in his usual puff of ash and smoke.

Spitz reached for his baton, levelling it at the Detective as the other hand grabbed his radio.

'Now, officer, I really reccomend you don't do that-' Cole tried to interject.

'You keep your bloody mouth shut! I knew somethin' was off! What the 'ell was that thing?' Spitz interrupted, baton quivering.

'Would you believe a stress-induced hallucination bought on as a result of extensive overtime and a lack of proper recompense?'

Spitz stared at the Detective in disbelief.

'...No.' he said, shaking his head as he clicked his radio on.

'Shame, but it took long enough for this, so it doesn't matter.' Cole shrugged as he raised his hand - a bright red sigil hovering between his arched finger and thumb - and snapped.

The same bindings that had constrained Rigby spun around Spitz's arms and legs, and he toppled to the floor with a yell. Cole strode over and knelt down next to him.

'I really am sorry about this, Officer, but if it's any consolation, you'll get at least 6 weeks paid leave out of it.'

Spitz struggled against the bindings and tried in vain to reach for where his radio had fallen.

'Out of... nngh... what?'

He looked up, and went pale, as he saw the Detective's sclera turn pitch black and a single finger, the tip sizzling like a lit cigar, reach out to press against his forehead.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

'This.'

--

Cole sighed as he pulled his collar up and his cap down against the oppressively muggy rain. Spitz was a good man, from what he had seen, and blanking his recent memories wasn't something he took joy in. Thankfully, the kindly old neighbour of Miss Finnegan's who had come to see what the noise was about had been all too happy to call an ambulance for the officer, as Cole's carefully practiced bullshitting skills had explained to her that the officer had just fainted away and banged his head on the way down. That little story, added to Spitz's newfound confusion about exactly what had transpired this night, would serve to leave that particular trail cold.

Officially, the Department of Infernal Affairs - Rick's department - didn't exist. Officially, magic didn't exist. But then, officially, the orphans and widows fund was for the orphans and widows of fallen officers, and not just as frequently dipped into for helping to pay off misconduct lawsuits. It was funny, when you thought about it, how unofficial most official things actually were.

On almost any given day of the week, the Detective's own penchant for the occult was more than ample for him to do what he needed to do without raising any brows or inviting unwanted questions. When one found Magic, however, one found those who were a touch more resilient to it's effects - those like Spitz, for example. Resistants like him were a rare breed, and exactly what bore them was unclear - but Cole made note to be more careful in the future, either way.

Cole turned down quiet pedestrian-only road and trotted down the steps to the warm orange glow coming from a pair of heavy, black wooden doors. Pushing them open and striding in to the wall of almost oppressive warmth on the other side, he entered the bar and made his way to... well, to the bar, while wondering to himself who had offended the English language enough that it felt it necessary to have so many things share the same name.

Making himself comfortable on an unoccupied stool, he rapped the bartop with two knuckles and waited his turn. The place was as busy as it ever was - which is to say, not hugely, but more than enough to leave the owner unafraid of any financial worries. This was the kind of joint you came to to drink, smoke, and little else; unless, of course, you were someone like Detective Rick Cole, in which case it had a third purpose.

As the shadow of the barman hovered over him, he barely looked up.

'Hellfire on the rocks.'

The looming shape of Bartholomew, the barman, nodded. Bartholomew was one of those people who loomed even when he didn't mean to. He was a born Loomer.

Wordlessly, he poured the contents of a few bottles into a highball over some fresh ice and slid it along the bar to the Detective.

Cole swirled it in it's crystalline home and drank in the smell with a sigh. Absolutely fucking vile, as per usual, he thought. Why can't they come up with something tastier for this?

Either way, he swung it back in one gulp, and as what may as well have been liquid fire gushed down his throat, he placed the glass face down on the bar and looked up from beneath the brim of his hat at the scene around him.

The layout of the bar hadn't changed - but its' patronage very much had. Where the various citizenry of London had been sitting were now vaguely human-shaped wavering shadows, but in the empty seats sat all manner of peculiarities - red-skinned men with horns that practically curled round to their own backs, people who very clearly had fangs between their lips when they parted them to speak, a lady who made the inner arachnophobe in Cole shudder viscerally even though she looked as human as anyone might, and so on. He spun in his stool and looked up at Bartholomew who, far from the toweringly tall bald man he had been a moment ago, was now a toweringly tall lizard. Whether or not that was an improvement was a matter of some debate.

'Cole, you old sssalt, been a while.' Bartholomew said with a latent hiss.

'No it hasn't, and you know it.'

The barman shrugged and half-nodded, not looking up from his current battle with a stubborn stain on a pint glass.

'Are they here?' Cole asked, after a period.

Bart barely looked up. 'Nope.'

Cole glared stonily at the lizard.

'So I just drank this swill for nothing?' he said, holding up the empty highball.

'You could have asssked me before ordering, you know.'

'You can't talk in our world, Bart. How was I supposed to ask you anything?'

Bartholomew stared into the middle distance for a moment, then shrugged.

'Ssscharades?'

Cole glowered at him and shook his head.

'Would you at least tell them I was here? I need their advice. Usual deal.'

Bart nodded, spitting something that gave off it's own smoke into the glass and using it to help bully the stain into submission.

'Ssssure. No promisess when they'll be round next, though.'

Cole shook his head and stepped off of the barstool, striding towards the door.

'Watch yoursself out there, Detective. It'ss a dangerous city.' Bartholomew called out with a wide, toothless grin.

Cole rolled his eyes and, as he stepped through the door, was promptly greeted once more by the disgustingly oppressive summer night rain outside. As the door swung shut behind him, one might have noticed the inside looked like any other bar once again.

--

With a heavy thud and creak of bearings under duress, Cole fell back into the chair in his cramped little office. He pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk - staring at the dark browl bottle within - before pushing it shut again. No time for that, now.

Staring into the middle distance over his arched fingertips, he pondered the facts before him. Something, or someone, had brought a larval form Daemon into the world. Of all the things some idiot might have had cause to summon, they really did pick the worst variety. Daemons, Demons and Devils were three wholly different kinds of problem.

Devils were pernicious, traitorous and malodorous arseholes, but they loved to make deals - and that was a key part of keeping them under control. If you couldn't make a deal that tempted them, they'd just leave - hopefully without causing any damage on the way out.

Demons were more prone to violence and mayhem, but were lesser than Devils, and tended not to impress themselves on the mortal plane - the one humanity calls home - unless they were very desperate or very confident. Or both.

But Daemons... they were a definite problem. Beholden to nobody and ruled among their own only by dint of being stronger than their peers, a rogue Daemon could cause all manner of havoc. And that was to say nothing of determining what kind of Daemon it was. There were at least five that had a larval stage that Cole could think of, and the difference between their habits at that point in their life cycle was almost non-existant. If he didn't work quickly, then the late Miss Finnegan would only be victim number one on a long and bloody list.

What happened next would have given most folk significant cause for alarm, as a circle of fire drew itself around the small wooden chair on the opposite side of Cole's desk. It flickered for a few moments, before then erupting in a column of flame that scorched the ceiling - although a canny observer might note that the ceiling had clearly suffered such a fate in the past from the burn marks upon it, and that in itself went some way to explaining why Cole remained wholly unimpressed by the entire affair.

Bartholomew was a lizard of his word, at least.

'Nergotheles. A pleasure, as always.' Cole remarked, as the little chair opposite him groaned laboriously under the new weight sat upon it. The Demon in question - a gigantic hulk of obscenely muscular flesh, juxtaposed by the small, circular-framed reading glasses balanced on its' nose and the frankly polite pose it was sitting in, hands neatly folded on it's knees - nodded in affirmation. Their voice, when their lips parted, was a deep baritone.

'Bartholomew says you were looking for us, Detective. Far be it from Nergoth - ahem - from me to ignore a friend.' the giant grinned, baring entirely more fang than necessary in an attempt to smile.

Nergotheles was one of those Outsiders - the collective term for all sentient entities not born of the mortal world - who was utterly fascinated by humanity. Even the reading glasses were a gift from the Detective, after noting how the giant had been squinting at things.

'Someone's loosed a Daemon into our world, Nerg. Grew inside a human woman, killed her on the way out. Happened hours before anyone found the stiff, so there's no eyewitness accounts of the little bugger, and I'm drawing blanks on what to do besides 'wait until it kills someone else and see if it leaves anything more telling behind this time.'

Cole looked up at Nergotheles.

'Shockingly, I'd rather not let that happen if I can avoid it.'

Nergotheles shrugged. 'It would be the easiest option.'

'Call me an old romantic, Nerg, but by and large I prefer options that result in a minimum number of innocent deaths.'

Nergotheles sighed and whisked a puff of smoke around it's fingers, conjuring a tome out of thin air and flicking it open to a seemingly random page. After reading for a moment, lips mumbling silently, the demon spoke up.

'Well, Detective, the good news is that nobody signed off on any conjurations in the last several months. Not since that incident at the fish canning factory.'

Cole shuddered slightly. He still wasn't convinced he'd gotten smell of fish viscera out of his favourite waistcoat.

'And the bad news?'

Nerg snapped his book shut. One of the few points in the favour of Hell and all it's unearthly legions was that it made earthly beuracracy seem positively see-through by comparison. Nothing happened without someone, somewhere, recording it meticulously - whether out of duty or for personal gain to use as leverage later on.

'The bad news is that makes this an unlicensed summoning. Which narrows your options down to malicious cult activity or a rogue Devil. Potentially both.'

'Shit.'