Trouble followed me like… well, no—that was perhaps unfair. Trouble was already part of me, and I took it everywhere I went. Conflict was never a surprise, but I was ever eager to find new ways for destiny could ruin one of my leather jackets.

I furrowed my brow at the imposing demon, who seemed unhappy with my presence here. “How do you mean?”

“You’re a Hunter. You kill demons. Your kind isn’t welcome here.” He somehow snarled with the weird mandible thing he had going on for a mouth.

“I seem to be doing a pretty terrible job then, huh?” My eyebrow raised as I glanced over at Korc.

My second-in-command for the gang looked as if someone had left something untoward in her cereal, and didn’t care much for the interruption of our meeting. I didn’t want to drag her into a fight when she was already wounded and demon lives seemed cheap enough that I also would hate to have a revolving door of go-to crocs as my contact.

//Level Six demon.

Small fry, then. I raised my hands up. “I don’t mean to cause offense. Perhaps you could escort me to the stairwell, so that I don’t disturb any further patrons.”

Korc gave me a look as if to make sure I was okay with that, and I gave her a brief nod. We had what we wanted from her, anyway. “We’ll be in touch.”

She looked apprehensive, but gave me a nod in return.

The insect-demon stood up out of the way so that we could remove ourselves from the booth. Wight hadn’t mentioned anything, even using telepathy—but perhaps he didn’t need to. Either happy enough to go with the flow, or knowing my intentions without them being said.

He led us back along the wall to the doorway out. The erotic dancers were the only other demons I could see, partially due to the way the booths were orientated and partly due to the darkness covering each table. They didn’t seem to mind my presence, so I felt that the one in front of me was in the minority.

The door opened, and we stepped out into the pale light of the luminescent bulbs. He followed us out, and the floor four doors shut away the dancers and odd tune. Remarkable soundproofing, considering. Perhaps some magic involved. Demon magic. That was a thing, right? I suddenly felt oddly out of place.

“I’ll help you gentlemen down the stairs too,” the demon hissed.

I frowned. No, it wasn’t really magic, just energy. Power. Although, now I was starting to question the difference. Were Wight and I magic users? Wizards, even?

[We have business on the sixth floor.]

“The fuck you do.” One of his spine-laden limbs thrashed out towards my patron.

I caught it in the air before it reached him. “Wrong move, asshole.” I grinned as energy flowed down my arm, my hand clenching tighter on his appendage. With the flash of demonic power, I wrenched it out from the socket, black blood spurting across the dull gray walls. As he stepped back in shock, I turned it around and jammed the sharper end into his head.

He slumped back against the wall, a long hiss sliding from his open mouth as he deflated.

[My hero.]

I rolled my eyes. The times that I had pooled my energy into a limb to strengthen myself were few and far between. In combat, anyway. I coughed and gestured for us to ascend the stairs to leave that puddle of thoughts in the dust. We might be time-limited now once his body was found.

It was possible for me to use Wight’s granted powers via my hands rather than the pact weapon—I had done so against Joxx’un. The only downside was the power destroying that limb in the process, and I wasn’t about to test if I had gotten better at handling that.

//Floor five. Eighty-one hostiles. Floor six, forty-four hostiles and the target.

“Details?”

//Level nine, lion type. May have a small group of bodyguards.

Now we were talking. Not only a tougher opponent, but potentially a little gang to deal with. Perhaps the Org should have mandated we do some manner of martial art or combat sport as part of our training. The rough and tumble tricks I’d picked up over the years hadn’t really stuck when I had a revolver in my grip to do the heavy lifting.

[Do you have a plan, Eric?]

I stopped on the landing between floors five and six, the doorway visible just up another set of stairs.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Realistically, try to off him as quickly as possible, then zip home.” I smiled, because that was actually reasonable for me.

[Almost disappointing.]

“You’d have me kill all demons until I couldn’t?” That sounded dangerous. Sounded fun.

[You have a lot of new power that could use tempering. Plus, our weapons are still downstairs.]

No easy exit until we got those back, then. We could always go back to the house and then portal outside again, but I didn’t like the idea of leaving all our weapons on a different plane… even for a handful of seconds. Partridge would burn a hole through my ear into my thick skull if he caught a whiff of it.

“Alright, I’m in. But if I lose a limb, you’re going to be nursing me the rest of the day.”

[Acceptable.]

//Not sure I agree, but engage at will.

I couldn’t help but smile. The warehouse hadn’t done anything to shave off my excess hubris. Sure, I had overextended myself, thinking I was clever with my energy usage—but I had survived pretty fine. A bit of stress relief with my fists, maybe a little dance, and then I’d go back to working on the Rat God’s homework.

We reached the door, and I pushed it open. Immediately, the smell of smoke hit me. Not tobacco or some kind of mist machine, but perhaps some other drug that the occupants were clouded by. It had an aniseed tang to it, already sticking to the inside of my lungs as we stepped in.

Orange and green lighting on this floor. Not exactly a pleasing color blend, but this area was better lit and had music closer to something my human ears could tolerate. Pounding bass with an electronic symphony behind it. Amid the constant fog of whatever was being smoked, a dance floor pulsed with waving lights as a few dozen demons danced in ways demonic.

Huh, that was a slippery sentence. Hopefully, whatever painted the air a light gray wasn’t hallucinogenic or could mess with my mind in some way. The small Eric sitting in the canary cage at the back of my mind was already laying inert on the floor. Probably just napping. He deserved a rest.

//Target back left.

My eyes darted over all the occupants, different shades and shapes that had no interest to me. There were no booths, only collections of stools around circular tables. In the middle of each table several pipes, like some manner of hookah. The sides of the rooms had inset grooves where beanbag chairs had been placed, several demons lounging about most of them and looking spaced out. At least, I assumed they were beanbag and not something malign and demonic. Like glitter.

[I can see this going really well, Eric.]

I looked down at my wavy bird friend. His eyes looked sleepy. Perhaps he was my canary. It would be more professional to ask him first, but I didn’t want all the wiggling ears in the room to overhear. Shouldn’t… uh… I forget, but we had a big cat to kill. The process of doing that with my bare hands in a room full of other demons seemed slightly crazy even as the smoke turned my brain to mush.

Caution told me to abort the mission. Go grab our stuff and go. We had done the deed of talking with the croc… oh, that reminded me…

I pushed Wight over onto one of the available beanbags and sank into one opposite. “Quick. Quick thing, Wight?”

His mouth opened but only ellipses came out.

“Talk to Korc, see if it works? We can tell her to elevate… no, exit the building before…” I aggressively wagged my eyebrows in the direction of our target. This music really was good.

[I’d need to patch information to the Passage, if he allows it?]

//Confirmed.

Wight looked up at the ceiling for a while, so I did too. It had interesting swirling patterns etched into it that kept on moving around. Or perhaps that was my vision? I put my hand in front of my face and the grooves and lines begun a little dance show for me. Glorious. I was humbled by them.

[Okay, see if you can patch us through.]

//Working. Connected to Korc now.

[The Korc. We are about to cause a ruckus. Eric has advised you leave the club.]

A few seconds of silence passed—although perhaps a misnomer in our current location. More accurate was that Wight was silent, as if waiting for a response. That was pretty likely, given the context. Even his feathers were wiggly now.

[She acknowledges and is moving to leave now.]

I nodded. Although it would be nice to have gang help, I didn’t want to risk more than necessary when we were in the early stages of… setting up an actual mercenary unit in the Lowers? That sounded more mature than just having a gang of crocodile people.

//Connection closed.

Now, if only standing back up wasn’t such a struggle. I looked back at my patron and he too had sunk in further to his soft chair. Odd that he might be affected by the inhaled smoke, as he didn’t actually have normal physiology and was a demon.

“Might have to possess me, bud. Whatever this stuff is, I’m going a bit out of my mind here.”

[Certainly, Eric.]

The cooling energy flooded through me and sobered me somewhat. While some temporary damage had been done to my sanity already, I at least felt in the right mind to approach this potentially dangerous situation with more tact and a clearer mind.

//Target is approaching you.

Oh, never mind.

I turned my head to see the lion-demon. Pretty much as I had expected. Smart suit, muscled, a lion head with a thick mane of golden hair. Or fur, I supposed. His posse accompanied him, and I was somewhat tickled to see they were all female lion-demons. I should tell him how much I liked cliches.

“Your kind isn’t welcome here, Hunter,” he growled, standing over me with his arms folded.

“I keep being told that, but I’ve caused no trouble…” I bit my tongue to avoid spilling the truth about the insect-demon. Stopped myself from saying ‘yet’ as well, but that part was somewhat implied. It was fair to say at Level Nine he could read between some lines.

//Jaghar.

“Your persistence does not mean you are tolerated. There are a few reasons one of your kind would be here. Do you wish to slay me?” His amber eyes narrowed.

“Sorry, I misheard you. I think I’m allergic to this smoke.” My brain was sluggish, even with Wight’s assistance, and I wasn’t sure if he was flirting or ready to fight.

He tilted his head to the side, some amusement on his animal face. “You do well to survive, as a human. Perhaps join us at a table for a while and earn your place?”

“Sounds purr-fect,” I regretted the phrase as soon as it left my lips, but he didn’t even twitch a whisker. Instead, he offered a furred hand to help me off. I couldn’t deny the salvation from these damnable chairs, so I took it.

“Hook us up, Hya.” He grinned to one of his accomplices. “Let’s see what this Hunter is truly made of.”

Either there was some static on the line, or Rodney was sighing heavily into comms.