I turned to Karl. "Stay here. I'll call you on the radio if I find anything interesting."
Karl gave me a look I was already getting tired of, and said, "When are you gonna stop treating me like a fucking rookie?"
"I'm treating you like my partner," I told him, "who happens to be the junior partner on this team and is supposed to do what he's told. And I'm telling you to wait here."
I got out, and just before slamming the door shut I snapped, "And stay awake!"
I was pissed off, but I couldn't have said at who. Maybe both of us.
I made a careful circle of the warehouse. All I learned was that the loading dock was in back and there was a normal-sized door on the north side. I approached the door and carefully tried the handle. It was unlocked.
I wasn't sure whether I was happy about that or not.
Inside, it was darker than the boots of the High Sheriff of Hell. I thought I could hear voices chanting, but they weren't close.
I took out my flashlight, and held it well away from my body before flicking it on. If the light was going to draw hostile attention, I didn't want any of it hitting me. But nobody shot, or shouted, or seemed to give much of a shit that I was there at all.
I wasn't sure whether I was happy about that, either.
The flashlight beam showed me that this part of the warehouse was divided into rooms by sheets of cheap plywood. There were a couple of hallways at right angles to each other. I followed the one where the chanting seemed loudest.
After rounding a couple of corners, I saw a door with light under it – the faint, flickering light you get from candles.
That door was unlocked, too. These people were either really stupid or really cocky. I turned the knob and pushed the door open slowly, praying the hinges wouldn't squeak.
I soon learned it wouldn't have mattered if the door was wired to start playing "The Star-Spangled Banner", in stereo. The people inside were so intent on what they were doing, they didn't even notice me. At first.
I slipped inside the room and quickly counted the house. It looked like thirteen of them. Well, that figured. They were all dressed in those hooded gray robes that were probably the height of fashion in the fourteenth century.
The cultists were standing in a rough semicircle, their backs to me. As I crept closer, I got a better view of what they were all staring at. That's when I realized it wasn't a case for Animal Control any longer.
This coven had already moved beyond goats and chickens. They had gone all the way to the big time.
The scrawny blonde teenager they had on the floor, tied spread-eagled and gagged, was dressed like a streetwalker. No surprise there.
Prostitution is the only job that requires a woman to go someplace private with a complete stranger. That makes working girls easy prey for guys who have more on their minds than a quick blowjob. Psychos have known that ever since Jack the Ripper, if not before.
It looked like they had just finished cutting her throat.
Her blood was flowing slowly across the wooden floor in the direction of the pentagram that somebody had drawn there in yellow chalk. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what they had in mind.
These morons were trying to conjure a demon.
Despite what you see in the movies, a summoning isn't all that easy to do. Hellspawn don't much like to be bothered by humans, who they regard with contempt. And most of the grimoires that you find are either completely worthless or they've got just enough accurate information to get you killed. Or worse.
Conjuring a demon is like that proverb about grabbing a tiger by the tail – the slightest mistake, and you're lunch. I wondered if these fools would succeed in calling something from the netherworld. If they did, they might soon wish they'd failed.
I had just decided to sneak back out and radio Karl to call for backup when the stream of the girl's blood reached the pentagram. As soon as it did, the air in the center began to shimmer and sparkle. The conjuration had worked, after all.
Something from Hell was on its way.
I drew my weapon and stepped forward. Summoning a demon is a crime all by itself, and there was no way to tell whether these clowns had constructed their pentagram properly. If they hadn't, we could soon have a demon loose in my city, and I was not going to let that happen.
"Police officer!" I yelled. "Stop the chanting and put your hands in the air! Do it! "
Most of them whirled to face me, eyes wide with shock. But some were so mesmerized by the pentagram, they couldn't tear their eyes from it.
The cultists who had turned my way were starting to put their hands up when I realized that I had miscounted. There were actually twelve of them gathered around the pentagram. I figured that out when Number Thirteen jumped me from behind.
The thirteenth guy had been out of the room – maybe in the john, puking over the sight of blood, I don't know. But he picked a bad moment to come back.
Lucky for me, the bastard didn't have a weapon. Instead, he jumped on my back, threw a forearm around my throat, and tried to grab my gun with his other hand.
Most of the others had turned back to stare in awe at what had just appeared inside the pentagram. I only had time for a quick glance, but I saw that it was a class-four demon, which is about all you'd expect from Amateur Night. Not a heavyweight like Lucifuge Rofocale or Baal, thank heaven, but still enough to cause plenty of trouble if it got loose.
Two of the cultists started toward me, I guess with the idea of giving their buddy on my back some help. I tried to bring my gun to bear on them, but Number Thirteen's hand on my wrist kept pulg it away.
Since I couldn't shoot them, I decided to do the next best thing.
I'd seen a guy do this in a bar fight, years ago. It had impressed me so much that I tried it myself in the gym a couple of times, where it didn't work real well. But I didn't have a lot of options.
I took two running steps, tucked my head down, and went into the beginning of a forward somersault. It wasn't the full deal, not with Number Thirteen clinging to me like a tumor. But it took us right into the two approaching cultists like a huge bowling ball, knocking them sprawling, and ended up with Number Thirteen going down hard on his back with me on top of him. He let go of me then – he was too busy trying to remember how to breathe.
I scrambled to my feet, sensed movement behind me, and turned just in time to catch another cultist's fist square in the face. The guy was no Muhammad Ali, but the punch was enough to knock me off balance. I went down, more pissed off than hurt, and immediately started to get up again.
Then something far stronger than a human hand grabbed my ankle, and in a heartbeat I knew that my leg had breached the pentagram.
The demon had me.
Most people can think pretty fast when they have to. Even me. In a flash I considered my options, and none of them looked very good. I still had my gun, but shooting a demon is a waste of time, even with silver bullets. And Arnie Schwarzenegger in his prime couldn't have broken the grip that thing had on my leg.
I was just thinking that my best option was to put the pistol in my mouth and pull the trigger when Karl Renfer appeared behind one of the smaller cultists, grabbed him at the neck and crotch with those big hands of his, and heaved.
"Here's dinner, Hellfuck!" Karl yelled, as he threw the struggling man right at the demon's ugly, misshapen head.
The kid was stronger than he looked.
Class-four demons aren't very smart. If this one had been brighter, it would have hung on to me with one clawed hand and grabbed the airborne cultist with the other one. Kind of like dinner plus dessert.
Instead, the stupid thing let go of me to grab its new prey, and I rolled away from that pentagram faster than a scalded cat on speed.
I got to my feet just in time to see the demon bite the cultist's head off and swallow it whole.