The portal led us into an alley between the 46th police precinct and a sandwich shop. It always smelled of fresh-baked bread and roast beef around there, which was a big improvement over the usual piss and garbage that perfumed most alleys in the city.

“Why would Kimberly want us to meet her here?” Anjelica asked as I pulled her toward the entrance.

“She wouldn’t. I have to make a stop first.”

A pair of buttoned-up officers sauntered out of the precinct. I turned away from them as they brushed past me. I didn’t have any outstanding warrants, and technically, I wasn’t breaking any laws, but I was certainly criminal adjacent and didn’t want to be recognized. I spent most of my time avoiding the police, so walking into the belly of the beast meant I was really desperate.

“Why are we here, then?” Anjelica asked.

“Do you always ask so many questions?” I snapped.

“Always,” she replied. “Even if I didn’t, it’s a valid question. I mean, yesterday I didn’t even know I was a demon, and now I’m walking into a police precinct with one after coming out of a frigging portal. How is that not a cause for questions?”

“You’re right. It is. Now shut up.” I turned from her to the desk jockey. “Hello. I’m looking for Officer Skyler Vogel. Can you tell me if he’s working?” I knew he was, but it seemed like the polite thing to do. I was laying on the politeness thick.

The slovenly young woman behind the desk stopped stuffing her face with a powdered donut like a frigging cliché and turned to her computer. The dust coated the front of her uniform like snow on Christmas morning. “Yeah, he’s working. Third floor. I’ll buzz you in.”

“Just like that?” My eyebrows shot up. “Don’t you need—you know what, thank you.” There was a loud buzz in the hallway, and a gray door clicked open at the end of it. I flung it open and climbed to the third floor. Most districts in the country didn’t have any computers, but Los Angeles had invested early and then tasked Skyler with implementing the system, giving him a back door to every case file and dirty little secret in the whole city.

There were a half dozen buzzing servers and hundreds of wires hanging everywhere on the third floor. I couldn’t help thinking we had stepped into a bad sci-fi movie instead of an annoying action-adventure one, which was what my life felt like at the moment.

I made my way through the cramped room until I heard skittering sounds up ahead. Skyler was an Arachne, blessed with eight arms and a thousand eyes—a perfect candidate to have eyes on the whole city. His disguise was particularly good, but he really hated wearing it, which meant he had probably taken it off when he was alone.

“Skyler,” I shouted. “It’s just me. Ollie.” I looked over at Anjelica. “And a friend.”

“Aw,” Anjelica said. “I’m glad we’re friends.”

“What did I say about shutting up?” I growled.

“Jesus Christ, man.” His bucktoothed face popped out from behind a filing cabinet. His thick glasses, three sizes too big for his face, made his eyes look enormous even inside his costume. A second later, my eyes refocused, and I saw the hairy arachnid under the mask.

“What are you doing here, man?” He was frowning. “I told you never to come to my place of business.”

“And I respect that, but people have tried to kill me twice tonight, and the last place I called you from got shot up by two demons, so you’ll forgive me if I’m not in a rule-following type of mood.”

“I don’t like it, man,” he said. “I’ll have to fine you. There will be a 30 percent increase in price for all jobs until the rest of the year. That way, you learn your lesson.”

“Whatever. I’m good for it.” I wasn’t good for it, not until I found the demon trying to hunt me down and shook the money out of him with extreme prejudice, but I wasn’t about to say that. “Did you find anything?”

Skyler pushed up his glasses. “The monster you’re tracking—it’s like he doesn’t exist.” He slid across his cluttered desk and pulled out a file. “At least not on any system connected to the grid. The demons you told me about, though, Balaam and Moloch? They’re your standard guns for hire. Go to the highest bidder.”

I grabbed the file from his outstretched arms. “So, they wouldn’t stay with this guy if he wasn’t paying?”

“Not even for a couple of days. These two are the real deal. They go back to the beginning. They were there for the Garden, Sodom, Gomorrah, and even followed Lucifer out of Heaven. Real badasses.” Skyler saw Anjelica behind me. “Is that her? The antichrist.”

“An antichrist,” I said, examining the file Skyler handed to me. “This says their last known residence was Seattle. Do you know who they worked for?”

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“A rat king named Benny. He was pissed when they left, too. They went right in the middle of a big score. Really blew up in his face. His crew’s been recovering ever since.”

I smiled. “Sounds like he has reason to talk to me.”

Skyler shrugged. “As good as any, though I doubt he’ll enjoy it any more than I do.”

“Thanks.”

“Address is in the file.” He grabbed me when I turned away. “And my fee?”

I swallowed. “You’ll get it this week. Come on. Have I ever stiffed you before?” I reached into my pocket and pulled five hundred out of my stash, and put it on the desk. “This is a down payment. Once I handle this, I’ll be back.”

“And what if you die?”

“If only, Skyler. If only.” I sighed. “Do you really think I would be that lucky?” I didn’t have much time before we had to meet Kimberly, so I rushed Anjelica down the stairs and back into the alley.

“Porth i 604 10fed rhodfa, Seattle.”

“Stop!” Anjelica shouted, pulling free. “This is not okay. You can’t just drag me along like a lost puppy.”

“Can’t I? I wouldn’t even be in this mess if it wasn’t for you.”

“That’s not true!” Anjelica squealed. “You were being shot at way before you met me.”

I sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“You say that too much. Just…stop treating me like a kid. I am going to die in a few hours, and I’d rather not be dragged around like a lost lamb.”

“All right.” She was right. “That’s fair.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

I was so used to just doing things without having to justify myself, but she deserved the truth. It was annoying. “To talk to this rat and try to figure out who this demon is who’s trying to kill you.”

“But we’re still going to meet, Kimberly after?”

“Of course,” I replied. “I promise.”

“Good, because I don’t want to die.”

“I don’t say this to many people, but I don’t want you to die either.”

Anjelica smiled. “That was almost nice.”

“I’m trying. Now, can we go?”

“Absolutely.”

We walked into the portal and reappeared in front of a drug store surrounded by nothing but the night air. I wasn’t surprised to see the lights on inside, but I was surprised that a mobster would be so blatant as to use the word “drug” in a huge sign hanging over their shell company. Some criminals just liked thumbing their nose at the law, while others were so powerful, they really did rise above it. I liked the first type but hated the second. I wondered where Benny fit into that spectrum.

“Ten minutes,” I said to Anjelica. “This is the last stop, okay?”

“Then we’ll find Kimberly?” Anjelica asked.

“I promise.”

She followed behind me as we walked into the store. A bell jingled when I pushed open the door, and a smiling woman in a white lab coat waved from behind the counter, her bun pulled so tight it nearly gave me a migraine just looking at it.

“Welcome to Ratinger Drug, Seattle’s only all-night pharmacy. Do you have a prescription to pick up or a new script we need to fill?”

I shook my head. “Neither, I’m afraid. We’re looking for Benny.”

She pursed her lips. “Oh, I’m sorry. There’s nobody named Benny working here. You must have the wrong place. Just little ole me, I’m afraid.”

“I know you’re lying.” I stepped toward the counter. To her credit, she didn’t flinch or back into the shelves of drugs that hung behind her, packed with everything from Nyquil to codeine. “We’re not cops. We just need to see Benny. It’s about two of his me—”

Her smile dropped. “I told you there’s no Benny on the payroll here.”

“Oh really? Not even if I have information about Balaam and Moloch?”

Her face was hard and stern, nothing like the warm, gentle welcome we received. “How do you know those names?”

“Because they’re trying to kill me, and I know where they are right now, to a degree of accuracy I think would be very interesting to your boss.”

“That changes things.” The woman reached under the table and a secret door unlatched in the row of drugs behind her. She pulled it open. “End of the hall.”

“Thank you.”

I followed the hallway downhill as it jutted to the left and then twice to the right before it broke into a big underground room with three sewer pipes leading out into different directions. The stench was overwhelming, but it covered the odor from the ball of rat parts and hair that made up the rat king in the center of the room, sitting behind a rotted and warped wooden desk. At least fifty rats skittered and crawled around to make up the shape of the mutant rat that turned to me.

“I hear you have information on two traitors.” When it spoke, three different pitches echoed and melded together like a bad anime overdub. “Tell me where they are.”

“I will, but first, I need your help.”

“Of course. Turnabout is fair play, after all. What can I help you with?”

There wasn’t time for tact. “Who hired them away from you?”

“That is a long, complex story, filled with many twists and turns, but in the end, we do not know. We thought we had him, then he slipped through our fingers in Budapest. As of yet, we don’t know where he popped up again. I have a feeling you do.”

“I do,” I answered. “But if I know more than you do, then I think we’re done here.”

Benny let out a horrible squeak, and a hundred rats appeared from the sewers, filling the room in every direction. I had never fought a hundred rats before, but I took a fighting stance and prepared to be attacked.

“No fighting,” Anjelica said. “You promised. Ten minutes.”

I sighed. “Okay, you’re right.” I dropped my fists. “I’ll tell you where they are. Hell, I’ll take care of them for you, but I need to know who hired them and who’s trying to kill me.”

Benny let out a whistle, and the rats receded. “I promise, if I get my revenge on these two pieces of dirt, I’ll get you your name and an army to chase their boss down. I guarantee it.”

I nodded. “Good. They’re in Los Angeles.”

“Wonderful,” Benny squealed. “And you’re certain you can take care of them?”

“They’ll be dead by morning.”

“I would be most appreciative. Their blatant disrespect has caused me all sorts of headaches.”

“Don’t call me, I’ll call you. I have work to do.”

Back outside, I looked down at my watch. “See, that wasn’t even ten minutes. I’m very efficient.”

“Yes, yes. I’m so glad you are playing fast and loose with my life,” Anjelica said.

“Fast and loose?” I scoffed. “Kimberly said thirty minutes, and it’s only been twenty.”

Anjelica grabbed my hand. “Let’s just go, please. My insides feel like they are ready to explode.”

“You got it. Porth i Palamino Lankershim.” The portal opened in front of me. “Come on, kid. Let’s fix you up.”