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.