CHAPTER ONE #2
It was best to invoke Hell when seeking compliance; the Underworld, even the Land of the Dead, didn’t inspire dread the way mention of Hell did.
Most of the living envisioned a land of eternal suffering, fire and brimstone and tortured spirits.
In fact, that wasn’t far from the truth – the flames and brimstone, anyway – but Hell was merely a passageway for most shades on their way to their final rest. The only real threat in Hell was demonic in nature, and she tended to avoid Pandemonium if she could help it. No need to poke the hornets’ nest.
The shuffling steps and murmured conversations ceased. A wise bunch, these particular peacekeepers. Hero settled her cane across her knees, straightened her scapular and removed her glasses entirely. She focused on the dead girl’s body and called upon the fires of Hell.
PK Commander Tyka Brennan watched the death speaker at work with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Demons were evil, pure and simple, an affront to Creation and the enemies of the Goddess Infinite.
Yet here one sat, communing with the victim.
Disturbing the dead, more like. Forcing a child to relive the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
And all she herself could do, a decorated commander and skilled investigator, was stand in mute witness to the travesty.
The half-demon was so obviously not one of us , Tyka wondered how she managed to walk down the street without being accosted, spit upon or punched, or what have you. What was one supposed to do to walking evil? Cast a few warding signs in her direction? Call a priest?
Though her face was unlined, the inspector’s hair was pure silver, wrapped into a sleek chignon at the base of her narrow skull.
And she was tall, too tall for a proper woman.
Lanky like a lad, almost sinewy. She moved like she had no bones.
Smooth like a serpent. Her skin had a porcelain cast to it, an alien paleness.
It made Tyka’s skin crawl – proper skin, skin with tones of pink and brown, skin with flaws. Real skin, not a facsimile.
Tyka could have overlooked all of that, if the half-demon speaker had at least acted human, but her supercilious attitude, her strange enjoyment of blood and death, and her manner of dress brought out a deep hatred, a natural hatred of an other – an other who chose to mock religion and comport herself in a sacrilegious way.
She dressed like a Celestial nun, or some twisted version of one, in a simple cream-colored shirt under a long scapular paired with wide, flowing pants gathered at the ankles.
All in shades of emerald, cobalt and ivory rather than the canonical white, black and crimson.
It was an odd mishmash of fashion that set her apart as much as her strange hair, physique and – blessed Branch – her eyes.
Her Goddess-cursed eyes of crimson flame.
I would have gouged them out, too, if my child had such eyes.
The mother never faced charges for her cruelty, Tyka knew, and she understood why.
Most mothers would have killed a demon-bred child.
Most decent mothers. What she should have faced charges over was shipping the girl-child off to an abbey, her eyes covered as if she were merely blind and not a devil incarnate.
Those poor nuns raised the girl in the faith, gave her a good home, a roof and food and education, trained her as a heavenly Shield of their finest battle order, only to discover her demon half by accident.
Only to have their abbey burned to the ground.
For that, Death Speaker Hero Viridian had served ten years in prison.
And now she works for us. As a damnable inspector, no less.
PK Commander Tyka Brennan had never been able to pass the qualifying test to be raised to an inspector.
Not that she was bitter about it.
Her nose had an itch, but Tyka didn’t move.
She wanted to – oh, how she did, to shift a bit and run a hand across her face.
As much as she disliked the inspector, she also had a healthy respect for her ability.
When Hero Viridian warned you about Hell, you’d be a fool not to listen.
Who would know best about Hell but a disgraced, half-demon ex-nun?
The air had a subtle tension to it around the speaker.
She herself was absolutely still, holding on to the cane across her knees – it hid a slim sword; Tyka had seen such covert weapons before – and staring at the dead body.
A lurid light shone from her creepy eyeballs and the tip of her tongue protruded from between her red, red lips like a cat’s.
The moment, the silence, the tension stretched, grew rigid, then snapped.
Hero smiled, her fangs on full display, and Tyka thought they might have gotten longer.
The inspector turned to her, and Tyka shifted at last, scraping at her itchy nose while she gave a quick, respectful bob of her head.
The other PKs around her shuffled and sighed, as relieved as Tyka was to be given their freedom back – and relieved that the ex-nun had turned her cursed eyes on Tyka and not them.
“Send in the survivor,” she said, sounding satisfied and eager all at once. “I need to talk with her a bit.”
“The other daughter?” Tyka exclaimed. “Why, she’s quite traumatized, Inspector.”
Hero chuckled and rose to her feet, unwinding with feline grace.
She stretched her arms above her head, her cane held high, as if she’d just woken, then collapsed back into a normal stance and leaned on her cane.
“Yes, I imagine plotting to have your entire family slaughtered will traumatize a girl. Send her to me. And start looking for her friend, James Durram. He’ll be trying to get rid of a bloody knife, I suspect. ”
Murmurs of doubt and surprise erupted from her fellows, but none of them were looking into the woman’s damnable eyes.
Tyka was. She saw the truth writ large within them.
Her lips pressed together and she nodded sharply.
“As you command, Inspector.” She turned to an underling. “PK Gris, bring the girl inside. Now.”