Exclusive Excerpt:
When I got back to my shabby little 9th Avenue office, no one was there. My partner, Eyre, was gone from his desk. It was just ten in the morning, but we were supposed to go out to dinner tonight, and then afterwards he'd be sleeping over at my place. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, hoping he'd somehow be there when I opened them. But no. Ever since I'd met him, I'd worried he might just disappear when he'd had enough of me. Maybe today was the day.
His desk looked normal enough. Laptop, closed. A half-empty can of Diet Pepsi. An orchid spray in a vase because after six months working with me he was still charmed at the idea of being like Nero Wolfe and having an office on 35th Street. An upturned paperback: Max Gladstone's Full Fathom Five. I'd bought it for Eyre as a joke because of the title - he used to go by Ariel, long ago and the title was out of The Tempest - but I guess he must have liked it because he was almost done with the book. It looked like he'd stepped out, except Eyre's pistol was still clamped under the desk, and his phone was charging. He hated carrying the gun, and I often had to bully him into it, but he wouldn't have left without his phone, not even to go to the bathroom. Something was seriously wrong.
Just then, my own phone rang, playing the Peter Gunn theme ringtone that meant someone was calling my office number instead of my personal one.
"Simeon Investigations."
"We have your minion," said an inhuman voice. A demon's for sure, unless it had been synthesized. It sounded like shards of broken glass jangling in a paper bag, but I could understand it. What I couldn't understand was how anyone could kidnap Eyre without getting their asses handed to them. Gun or no gun.
"Who are you?"
More broken glass sounds, but no words. After a few seconds I realized it was laughter. At last the voice answered. "We would be foolish to divulge our true name. Call us Émigré."
"What do you want?"
"We have a job for you."
I felt a flash of red rage. My little pet fire elemental, Spark, flared up in sympathy from its urn on the windowsill, and I thought I might just burst into flame myself.
"You stupid infernal-plane motherfucker! I charge a hundred an hour. All you had to do was clear a check and I'd work for you. But now-"
"Now we have leverage, yes?"
"Let me speak to him."
"Certainly."
Brief silence, and then Eyre came on the line. His voice was weak. I wanted to reach through the phone and tear broken-glass-voice to pieces with my hands.
"Hey, Nora," he said. "I'm really sorry about this. They got hold of my sigil somehow. They know what I am."
"Eyre," I said, "listen to me. I'm coming for you. Don't fight them yourself." I was thinking, Not till I get there.
"No fear of that," he said. "It's - you'll have to see. They say they'll let me go if you work for them. But I don't think-"
Eyre's voice cut off and broken-glass-voice resumed.
"Nora Simeon is known to us as a hunter of demons. She was contracted to hunt the demon Barbatos. She fulfilled her contract and killed the mighty demon Azriel."
Actually, it was Eyre who had the final word against Azriel, but there was a lesson there I wanted this demon to learn.
"I'm a PI. An investigator. Barbatos was just a missing person job. But listen carefully. Azriel would have been in no danger from me, except she attacked Eyre. My partner, Eyre. I've got nothing against demons these days. Not unless they kidnap my friends. Do you understand me, Émigré?"
A pause. "Yes."
I knew even as I was saying it how stupid it was. But I couldn't help myself. I was too damn angry.
Giveaway:
Laurence Raphael Brothers is a writer and a
technologist. He has published over 25 short stories in such magazines as
Nature, the New Haven Review, PodCastle, and Galaxy's Edge. His WWI-era
historical fantasy novel Twilight Patrol was just released by Alban
Lake. For more of his stories, visit https://laurencebrothers.com/bibliography,
or follow him on twitter: @lbrothers.
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