Page 32 of Devils and the Dead
“Cream? Sugar?” I asked as the brown liquid spurted into the cup.
“Whatever you decide, sir. I’m honored by your offer of coffee, and wouldn’t dare show disrespect by putting any limits on what you give me.”
I rolled my eyes then added both cream and sugar before handing it over and turning back to make my own cup. The guy probably hadn’t had coffee since he’d arrived in hell. Might as well make it sweet and creamy.
“The demons all say they were not there to attack the Hoffman family,” Steve said as I took my seat. “They claim that they had no intention of hurting any humans in attendance. All they wanted was to retrieve the squirrel.”
Again with the squirrels. “What’s the big deal about this squirrel?” I asked.
Steve shrugged. “It was Faust.”
My eyebrows shot up. Faust had escaped hell and had been on the run for a long time. I didn’t pay much attention to gossip, but something I’d overheard tickled in the back of my mind.
“The Faust-squirrel was being given sanctuary by a witch named Adrienne Perkins, who was there at the Hoffman farm. That’s why the demons attacked there. It didn’t have anything to do with the Hoffmans. It was all about this Perkins witch and the Faust-squirrel.” Steve shook his head. “It was a damned mess. Lucien needed to get involved and certain concessions needed to be made. At the end of the day, the demons were told to stand down, and Typhon ended up taking Faust into service as a hellhound.”
I grunted. Faust had vanished on Typhon’s watch, so it was fitting that he’d be the one overseeing that particular soul’s punishment.
Wait. Typhon. Witch. Adrienne Perkins.
Babylon Perkins. A witch necromancer.
The fear I’d been ignoring roared to the surface. Damn it. The Hoffman farm was in the same town that Babylon lived and worked. She and her sister Adrienne had been there at the party when the demons attacked. The Hoffman souls who were buried on the family cemetery had been summoned to defend the farm and their family. By a necromancer. By Babylon.
“There’s a genealogy of the Perkins witches here.” Steve reached over and flipped the report open. “I’m thinking this Adrienne Perkins witch knows the necromancer. My guess is that he was there at the party with her, and he’s the one who summoned the souls. He’s the one who has Maude Hoffman. You’ll have to be careful because the Perkins witches are powerful and connected to some high-level folks here in hell, but I’ll bet the necromancer is a friend of hers.”
No,shewas Adrienne’s sister.
Babylon had Maude Hoffman’s soul. I couldn’t admit this to Steve or anyone else. I could barely admit it to myself. The angels had given us a four-day deadline and we were already one day into that, but I needed to try to stall as long as I could. In the few short hours I’d spoken with her, I felt as if I knew Babylon Perkins. She’d called forth over a dozen souls from their afterlives, and from the situation Steve had outlined, she’d had a good reason to do so. I was sure she had an equally good reason for keeping Maude Hoffman’s soul.
I couldn’t just type up my report and turn it in. I couldn’t reveal to anyone that she was the necromancer responsible for this mess. I couldn’t do that to her.
One evening chatting over French toast and I was already falling in love with the beautiful necromancer. But even if I didn’t have feelings for her, I wouldn’t turn her in. Babylon was a good person. I didn’t want to see her in trouble for this. I wanted to help her any way that I could.
So I’d bury this report of Steve’s. I’d send him off on some wild goose chase, tracking down someone else—anyone instead of Babylon. It would buy me time—the time I needed to hopefully find a way out of this mess.
Chapter 15
Babylon
“You had a date?” Maude’s eyes sparkled with excitement. She sat at the kitchen table and motioned for me to do the same.
“IthinkI’d call it a date.” I grabbed my cup of coffee and plopped down in the chair across from her. Getting home at almost five in the morning had been my excuse for not telling Maude about my evening. I’d gone straight to bed, snagged five hours of sleep, and was up at what for me was an early hour. I had things to do, first among them telling my roomie about last night.
“Tell me all about him.” Maude sighed. “I wish I could meet him, but I know you can’t exactly introduce a young man to me when I look like I just crawled out of the grave.”
I winced. “It’s not that. He’s looking for you, Maude. When I summoned you and your family, heaven, hell, and purgatory noticed. The others went back, so no one prioritized checking into what happened, but you didn’t return.”
She frowned. “They sent him to track me down, and he traced me to you. Oh, Babylon! I’m so sorry. My being here is going to get you in trouble, isn’t it?”
I sipped my coffee and rubbed the sleep from my eyes, trying to think of a way to tell her the details without making her feel guilty about her desire to live a second life.
“If what I’ve done gets me in trouble, then that’s on me. It’s not your fault I summoned you. I’m the one who screwed up.”
Maude didn’t appear convinced. “So what happened? I’m guessing he didn’t figure it all out yet, or I wouldn’t be sitting here and you wouldn’t be calling last night a sort-of date.”
“He knows I’m a necromancer but doesn’t suspect I’m the one responsible for yanking you out of heaven,” I explained. “Xavier, a crossroads demon who is dating one of my sisters, introduced him to me. I get the impression he was going around and talking to necromancers about the incident, trying to investigate, and thought I might know who was responsible.”
I told her the whole story, from the moment Hades came through the door to him kissing my hand in the parking lot of the Disco Diner.
