Uncanny Collateral

Chapter 5

I got a phone call from a blocked number on my way to work Monday morning. “Alek Fitz,” I answered groggily.

“How’s my little Norseman this morning?” It was one of those voices that that immediately made you imagine a full pair of pouty lips. A little tickle went up the side of my neck, as if the owner of those lips had blown gently on that sensitive spot just beneath my ear. It was a voice that demanded attention. All traces of sleepiness disappeared.

“Hi, Lucy,” I said warmly. “You think you could have called me back last night?”

Lucy – or Lucifer, to use her given name – is my favorite client. She’s the CEO of LuciCorp and the most well-known of the Lords of Hell. I like Lucy a lot, and I’ve always felt like she gets a historically bad rap. She’s a top-notch businesswoman, sends me gift baskets every Christmas, and has a great sense of humor.

I heard a scoff from the other end of the line. “Always business with you, isn’t it? I was stuck in an orgy until almost two. You don’t want me to call at two, do you?”

“Not unless you’re inviting me along.”

A wicked laugh responded. “You know you’re always welcome.”

I sucked on my teeth, rolled my eyes, and thought of velvet cushions and top-shelf liquor. I felt a presence stir in Maggie’s ring. “The last time I went to one of your parties, I could barely see for six weeks.”

“And it was completely worth it, wasn’t it?”

You’d better say yes, Maggie said. That party was the most fun I’ve had in centuries, and I only got to watch.

“You know I work for a living, don’t you?” I asked Lucy.

“Pishposh. I’ll lean on Ada – have her send you out here for a consultation of some sort. I seem to remember there being a very cute little fire demon that you got to know pretty well.”

Oh, I remember her, Maggie said.

I felt my cheeks warm. I remembered her too. Occasionally – just occasionally – I love my job. “I got to know a lot of people,” I told Lucy. “It’s all a little hazy. How about you give me a hand now, and we can talk about parties next time, eh? I’m looking for a lady who sold her soul in Cleveland. High-powered exec of some sort.”

“My secretary told me.” Lucy’s voice switched from flirtatious to all business without missing a beat. “She’s not an exec; she’s a lawyer. Normally I wouldn’t give out this sort of information, but I’m told this has to do with the little issue that Ferryman is dealing with.”

“That’s right.”

“Her name is Judith Pyke. She’s a partner at the law firm Wilson and Pyke. I’ll email over all the info we have on her.”

“I really appreciate it.”

“Anything for you, troll boy.” Her voice slid back to flirtatious. “Oh, and tell Nadine to answer my texts. I have board meetings all afternoon, and I need something to keep me occupied.”

“Uh,” I said, “since when do you text with Nadine?”

“Are you joking? Nadine is the funniest person I know in the entire Midwest. We’ve been going on holiday together for years.”

“You think you know a person,” I muttered to myself, pulling into the Valkyrie Collections parking lot. My phone beeped, indicating an incoming call. “I’ve got to go. Send me the information, and let me know when you’re in town next. We’ll get dinner and charge it to Ada’s credit card.”

“I like the way you think.” The line went dead, and I switched over. “Alek Fitz.”

“Do you have any good news for me?” It was Ada.

I swore silently. I should have let it go to voicemail and claimed ignorance later. “Nothing yet,” I told her. There was a long, disapproving silence. I rolled my eyes and tried not to panic as the barcode on my chest tightened. “Look,” I continued, “it’s been two days. I worked all weekend despite some asshole necromancer jumping me at Starbucks.”

Ada sniffed. My barcode continued to feel progressively more uncomfortable. “Ah, yes. What was that about, anyway?”

“No idea,” I lied. “He won’t tell me, and he won’t tell OtherOps. Probably an old debtor coming back for revenge.” My breathing began to feel restricted, and I silently cursed Ada. “I’m hitting the pavement hard on this Ferryman business. I just talked to Lucy. She’s sending me some info that I’m going to check out this morning.”

The tightness disappeared, and I took a deep breath to hold in an angry growl.

“Fine,” Ada said. “Just don’t goof off. We don’t get the chance to impress someone like Ferryman too often.” She hung up.

“Goof off,” I muttered, rubbing my bar code. “Since when do I goof off?” I sat in the car for a few minutes while I waited for Lucy to send over Judith Pyke’s information. Once I had it, I went inside, said good morning to Nadine – and told her to return Lucy’s texts – then headed straight back out on the road to downtown.

Judith’s office was in 200 Public Square, one of the big skyscrapers downtown. I parked in a nearby garage, where I checked for security cameras before changing quickly into a shirt that I kept carefully folded in a bag beneath my driver’s seat. It was a black button-down shirt with a white diagonal stripe across the front and the word OtherOps emblazoned over the left breast. I could hear Maggie humming to herself as I changed.

You enjoy this far too much, I told her.

Oh, come on. You know I love it when you impersonate an OtherOps agent.

I really shouldn’t, I replied. If I run into an actual OtherOps agent, I’m screwed. I could practically see Maggie grinning at the idea. I could never quite decide whether she enjoyed watching me play dress up or just got a thrill from the danger of it. Probably a mix of both. You know, if they catch me, they’ll confiscate your ring. Or at least they’ll try to. That’s what cops do.

The humming stopped.

I walked in through the front door, wearing a black, nondescript windbreaker over my OtherOps shirt, and headed across the big atrium, where I checked in with the front desk using a fake ID. I was soon on my way up to the law offices of Wilson and Pyke. I got off the elevator on the seventeenth floor, where I went through a series of hallways before finding myself in a small reception area with frosted glass walls and a single secretary’s desk.

The secretary was a clean-shaven, immaculately professional young man with dark hair and severe eyebrows who sat straight-backed in his chair. He fixed me with that hollow secretary smile and tilted his head condescendingly to one side. “Good morning, sir. May I help you?”

“I’m looking for Mrs. Pyke,” I responded. I pulled a business card out of the breast pocket of my OtherOps shirt. It had a fake name on it and a phone number and email address that forwarded to my real ones.

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No,” I said. “Please call her office and let her know that Agent Gee from OtherOps is here to see her.”

The secretary examined my card for a moment. “I’m sorry, but Miss Pyke isn’t in right now.”

He’s lying, Maggie said.

“Fine,” I told him, keeping straight-faced. “When will she be back? I’ll wait inside.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you in the office without a warrant, Mr. Gee.”

“Agent Gee.” I fixed him with my best withering look. “Sir, I’ll be frank: you must be new here, because if you weren’t, you’d know that OtherOps doesn’t work like regular police. This isn’t an antagonistic visit. Just get your damn boss on the phone.”

Oh, I love it when you do your official business voice, Maggie whispered.

I had to bite my cheek to keep from cracking a smile. I unzipped my windbreaker so that he could see the shirt and official-looking lanyard beneath it. The secretary eyed me warily for a moment before picking up the phone. “She’s with a client right now, but she should be almost done. Hold on a moment while I check.”

I did a circuit of the little reception room while I waited. It was stylish but empty, with industrial-grade carpet to give it a warmer feeling, tall ceilings, gold fixtures, and those frosted glass walls to give you the impression that VERY IMPORTANT THINGS were happening just beyond that door. I can’t get anything from inside, Maggie told me. Damned law offices love to ward up super tight. But it means they’ve got some serious capital.

The woman sold her soul to LuciCorp. I sure hope she has serious capital.

Our brief conversation was interrupted by the secretary clearing his throat. I returned my attention to the man, only to find him fixed with a look of consternation.

Something is wrong, Maggie said.

I gathered as much.

I approached the desk slowly. The secretary’s face was white, and he trembled slightly. “Uh, you’re a cop, right?”

“Kind of,” I replied cautiously.

“Because Miss Pyke just gave me the code word to call the police on the gentlemen she’s meeting with.”

“Shit,” I said, moving quickly toward the door. “What am I dealing with? Who is she meeting?”

“I’m not sure! She said they were clients. It’s a group of imps; I…”

Imps. Of course it had to be imps. I didn’t wait for him to finish and hit the door running. As soon as I was inside the actual office, I heard Maggie let out a soft gasp. I’m in, she said.

Talk to me!

Head to the end of the hall and take a right. Corner office. Five imps. One standing guard, four in there with her. They’re armed. As she spoke, I produced my Glock from my endless wallet, then a little black cylinder that I screwed onto the end. It looked an awful lot like the type of silencer you see in the movies, but unlike those, this one was wrapped in black magic and actually worked like everyone thinks real silencers work. I was not, after all, a real OtherOps agent. I didn’t want to attract attention.

The office is empty except for Judith and the secretary, Maggie told me.

Good. I rounded the corner at a sprint and caught sight of a short, ugly man in a cheap black suit standing outside the door to the corner office, his attention on his phone. “OtherOps! Hands where I can see them!” I bellowed.

The imp nearly leapt out of his skin. He swung toward me, his mouth opening in surprise, which quickly changed to a snarl. He reached into his jacket. I squeezed the trigger twice without a second thought. The magical silencer made a high-pitched sound, tinkling like broken glass, and both shots took him in the chest, spinning him around before he dropped to the floor. I reached Judith’s door and set my feet, putting my shoulder into it hard enough to burst straight through the wood and into a room where all activity seemed to freeze upon my arrival.

I stood in a large executive office with a glass desk opposite a leather couch. An imp sat behind the desk playing with a bunch of paper clips. A second and third imp held a middle-aged woman down on the couch while a fourth stood over her face holding a soul mirror. All of them looked up at me, mouths open.

These fuckers are dangerous, Maggie said. Put ’em down so they don’t get back up.

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

Everyone moved at once. The three imps with Judith leapt to their feet. I took out the one with the soul mirror with three shots and the friend closest to him with another two. The third leapt at me with a scream, and I caught him by the throat with my left hand. I felt a flare of sorcery from Maggie’s ring, and the imp’s head burst into a smokeless flame so hot I had to throw him away. The last imp came out of the desk chair, gun in hand, and went down with three more shots.

I froze, my eyes moving around the office and blood pounding in my ears. The whole thing had happened so quickly that I could still feel my tusks growing in reaction to the adrenaline. I forced them to retract, rubbing my gums with my left hand and trying to blink through the daze brought on by such sudden violence.

I checked the imp just outside the door, then did a quick circuit of the other three I’d shot. Every one of them was dead, or would be within a few minutes. I didn’t even bother checking for a pulse on the one Maggie had gotten her claws into. He lay in the corner, his bare skull smoldering through the end of his unintended Ghost Rider impression. Thankfully, the sorcerous flames hadn’t lit the carpet.

I headed to the couch to get my first look at Judith Pyke. Judith, it seemed, had seen better days. She was deathly pale, her body emaciated and frail. She looked like she could barely stand, let alone fight off a group of imps. She lay still, her eyes open and her breath wheezy as she stared at the bodies scattered around the room.

Jesus, Maggie whispered. She’s rotting from the inside out.

For real?

Yeah. I’ve never sensed anything like it. I could hear the revulsion in Maggie’s voice.

“Miss Pyke,” I said gently, “are you okay?”

She trembled, her eyes continuing to move from imp corpse to imp corpse before finally settling on my face. She managed the barest hint of a nod. I heard a noise beyond me and turned quickly to find the secretary standing in the doorway, his eyes wide. “Were there only five of them?” I asked, even though Maggie had already given me that answer.

“Ye… ye… yes,” the secretary stammered. “Sh… sh… should I call the cops?”

“I am the cops, remember? Don’t call anyone.” The last thing I needed was the real OtherOps showing up to ask questions. “Has she always looked like this?”

“No, sir. Only for a few months or so. She’s been going to doctors, but no one seems to know what’s wrong.”

I already had a sneaking suspicion that I knew what was wrong, the same way a mechanic can tell when a clunky engine has been fixed with substandard parts. “Ma’am,” I said in a low voice to Judith, “did you purchase a secondhand soul?”

Another barely perceptible nod.

Has she been sedated? I asked Maggie.

Not as far as I can tell. This is all her.

I did another circuit around the room and found the soul mirror that had been dropped by one of the imps. It looked like my own standard-issue gear – equipment procured directly from the soul dealers. I put it in my pocket, then opened up my wallet to find one of my own. Most soul mirrors had fingerprints on them – mirrors waiting to be used on debtors – but I was able to dig up a blank one. I sat down on the sofa beside Judith. “I’ve got to get it out of you,” I told her. “I’m sorry.” Moving quickly, I used two fingers to hold open her right eye and held the mirror above it. She shuddered once, and the mirror warmed to my touch. When I took it away, her eyes were closed.

I checked her pulse.

“Is she going to be okay?” the secretary asked. He still stood in the doorway, wringing his hands, studiously avoiding looking at the corpses.

“Of course she is,” I told him. In truth, I had no idea. I’d never seen anything like this before. Maggie mentioned a rot. If it was caused by the secondhand soul, there was no telling what kind of side effects might remain. Any idea if she’s going to wake up soon? I asked Maggie.

I can’t tell. Her heartbeat is regular, and she’s still breathing.

If she doesn’t wake up…

You’ll be in deep shit?

I was going to say that I’d feel terrible if I killed her with a soul mirror, but yeah, I’d also be in deep shit.

I looked at the secretary. “Go back to your desk. I’m going to make some phone calls and get the proper people here to deal with the bodies. If anyone comes to the office asking questions, get rid of them. And don’t call anyone, not even her partner.” Once the secretary had withdrawn, I took out my phone and dialed Ferryman’s answering service.

“Hello. This is Alek Fitz. Tell Ferryman that I need five bodies gotten rid of quietly and quickly. Yes, I’ll wait for a call back.”

I hung up, turned on my camera app, and began to take pictures of the dead imps.

Much to my surprise, Judith was sitting up within half an hour. She stared despondently at the bloodstains on the carpet, her eyes avoiding the pile of imps I’d stacked neatly in one corner and covered with a blanket from the sofa. Even in such a short time, she already looked improved; some of the color had returned to her face, and she seemed to be able to move – if painfully – under her own power. Her secretary brought her a cup of coffee, then retreated, after which Judith returned her gaze to me.

“Why are you pretending to be an OtherOps agent?” she asked.

I’d already introduced myself for real, and I gave her a tight smile at the question. “If I’d shown up and told the secretary I was a reaper, you wouldn’t have seen me.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because you’d assume I was either here for a client or for the secondhand soul. You wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me about either. Reapers might have some pull, but nobody says no to OtherOps.”

She sniffed, took a sip of her coffee, and then held it in both hands to hide their trembling. Despite her condition, she still had sharp eyes, and she managed a stern, disaffected air. “You’re not wrong. I suppose I shouldn’t report you, considering the circumstances.”

I heard Maggie laugh in the back of my head. She’s an arrogant old broad. Should you point out that if she reports you she’ll go down for soul fraud?

I don’t think that’s a thing, I told her.

It will be if she calls OtherOps on you.

“I appreciate that,” I said to Judith. “This secondhand soul – what can you tell me about it?”

She hesitated before answering. “I’ve suspected that it was killing me since I first got it.”

“And how long have you had the soul?”

“Four months or so.”

“And how long until it started to do this to you?” I asked, gesturing at her emaciated body.

Judith shook her head. “I started to feel strange within a week. The physical changes became apparent after a month.”

“If you suspected something was wrong, why didn’t you just call the guy you bought it from and ask to have it removed?”

Judith rasped a chuckle. “Denial, I suppose. I wanted to believe I was just sick. Do you know what it’s like to not have your soul?”

“I wouldn’t, no.” A better reaper might have injected a little sympathy into their voice. With my background, I have a hard time relating to anyone who willingly makes deals with the Other. “But I’ve heard it starts to hurt after a while.”

“Not hurt,” Judith explained. “Not exactly. You just start to feel… empty. Like a shell. It’s like a really bad breakup, where no amount of joy can fill the void left behind. Nothing – money, food, sex, power, thrill. Life becomes tasteless. I sold out to LuciCorp fifteen years ago. I paid immediately. None of those damned deferment plans that eventually find the reapers at your door. It took almost a decade for the emptiness to hit. After a while, it was all I could think about. Then…” She gestured to the pile of dead imps. “One of these little bastards showed up at the office and offered to sell me a used soul. Claimed it would feel just like my old one, and I’d be back to normal within weeks.”

“How much did you pay?” I asked.

“Five hundred grand.”

Maggie let out a low whistle.

I said, “I’m looking for the people who sold this to you. Did I get them all?” I certainly hoped not. If I had, I’d just killed everyone who could tell me where to find the rest of Ferryman’s missing souls. I was pretty sure I was in the clear, though. Imps rarely act on their own.

“No, no,” Judith answered. “At least, I don’t think so. I don’t actually recognize any of those… gentlemen. I only let them in because one knew that I was sick and claimed he could help me.” She scowled into the distance, her eyes hopeless. “They were going to kill me.”

That was interesting. “How do you know?” I asked.

“They talked about it. I could barely fight back. They said they were going to repossess the soul they sold me, then slit my throat. They would have killed Robert, too – gotten rid of us and then sold the soul to the next poor sap.”

I assumed Robert was her secretary. “Imps are gossips,” I told her, “and they’re savage little bastards who tend to be low on the food chain. Whenever they get a chance to lord over others, they do. Do you know who their boss is?”

Judith shook her head. “I paid in cash. Dropped it off at a warehouse in the Flats.” She tried to get up, and I had to help her to her feet. She teetered over to a filing cabinet and came back with a scrap of paper. “That address.” She leaned heavily against the wall, staring at the covered corpses, and I thought I saw a flicker of life – of anger – in her eyes. “I’m going to leave town for a while.”

“Probably a good idea,” I answered. “People will be here to clean all this up in ten minutes. You’ll want to make sure that your secretary – Robert, was it?”

“Yes.”

“That Robert doesn’t tell anyone about this. It’s best if he keeps thinking I’m OtherOps, but if OtherOps does show up for some reason… well, I was never here.”

“I understand.”

“Good.” I felt around my lower canines with my tongue. I could still taste some blood from where they’d split the gums. It was painful, but a good kind of pain. The berserker in me enjoyed the sight of the bodies in the corner, relishing the memory of putting down five of those creepy little fuckwits. The human part of me felt vaguely ill. I’m a good reaper partially because I’m dangerous, yes, but I’m not an assassin or a thug. Without Maggie’s urging and that troll blood in my veins, I would have moved a little more cautiously – maybe even left an imp alive for Maggie to question. I felt foolish.

I exchanged cards with Judith and stepped outside just in time to see Ferryman’s cleanup squad enter the office. There were over a dozen of them – all human, as far as I could tell, and the group included janitors, a butcher, carpet men, and even a couple of guys wearing the shirts of a local glass company, here to replace the one frosted glass wall I’d shot out in my little rampage. I stepped around them and headed into the hallway, where I wished, not for the first time, that I followed in the footsteps of almost everyone else at Valkyrie and smoked. It might have relieved some of my tension.

You don’t seem too hot right now, Maggie said.

I just killed five people.

Imps.

Yeah, imps. They’re not human, but I’d still feel bad if I hit a dog with my car. Besides, I should have left one alive.

Move too slowly, and that one might have gotten the drop on you.

I snorted. She was right, of course. Always shoot first and ask questions later when it comes to a room full of hostile imps. But I still didn’t feel great about it. I’m taking the rest of the day off. I’ll call a friend of mine at OtherOps and find out who owns this warehouse. Then we’ll hit it first thing in the morning.