From Hell Read Free Page A

and
getting away with it. He’s not gonna slip up or give himself away
just because we’re here.”
    She grunted. “Then what
are we going to
do?”
    At least she was playing
nice now. Well, as nice as she was capable of. I know she didn’t
really believe I had anything to with this, we’d known each other too long for
that, but I had no doubt she still felt Hell—or more specifically,
Lucifer or one of his cronies—was behind it all.
    Her father, Royce, was one of
Lucifer’s three siblings. Seeing how he’d raped an angel, which
resulted in Scarlett’s birth, that didn’t exactly give her much
faith in her southern relatives by default. Can’t say I blame her
any, but for what it’s worth, Uncle Lou is the white sheep in the
family. He’s certainly got his faults, but between his
siblings—Royce, Reann, and the piece of shit scumbag that was my
sperm donor—Lucifer is a saint.
    “ Well, it’s Friday night
and most of the killer’s attacks have been on a weekend, as well as
on hookers, so I suggest we find out where the more secluded of the
women hang out and see what we can see.”
    “ You mean something like
the group you scared off before beating their pimp
unconscious?”
    “ Uh, yeah…just like them.”
I hated when she made sense.
    She sighed. “You don’t have a better
plan than hang out and watch prostitutes?”
    I looked up at the dark clouds and let
the rain fall over my face. Lucifer didn’t know anything more about
the killer than Metatron did, which left us all out in the dark.
Even with as often as Hell and Heaven played in the mortal sandbox,
it wasn’t like they understood the humans or could read their minds
or anything. Free will left a lot of room between the lines of
black and white pool the supernaturals played in. It was a
condition neither angels nor demons could entirely fathom. While
we—demons, that is—had a lot of room to maneuver, we were all bound
to the rules of the universe we inhabited. In the end, we’re all
pawns from one side or the other, the Almighty and Uncle Lou
nudging us into motion as they saw fit. Those two as far from human
as possible, the machinations of gods and men have never quite
synched up.
    “ No, not really,” I
admitted as I lowered my face and let the trickles of water roll
down my cheeks. Come morning, I could run off and have a chat with
my uncle’s contact but until then, it looked like were spending the
night in the downpour searching for a needle in a wet and drippy
haystack. “We’re just gonna have to get lucky.”
    Scarlett shook her head,
water flying off her hair in glistening drops. “The very last
thing you’re going to do is get lucky, Frank.” She turned and went to the
edge of the building, peering over the ledge at the street below.
The scree of
whistles and the barks of dogs were whispers in the darkness. The
bobbies had lost the trail.
    A smile split my cheeks as I watched
Scarlett. I might not be getting lucky, but at least I had a room
with a view.

Four
     
    The sun inched into the sky behind a
blanket of gray. It did nothing to chase the chill from the air,
but at least it had stopped raining. London glistened in the dawn.
Millions of sparkling diamonds littered the city, reflecting the
pale morning light and shimmering in the early gloom.
    Scarlett and I had circled the city
all night via the rooftops the entire night but what brave souls
remained outside—by choice or happenstance—were few and far
between. While it might have been an ideal night for killers, since
there were no witnesses anywhere to be found, there were also no
victims out and about. Hard to kill folks who aren’t
there.
    I shook the water from my soggy coat
and glanced over to Scarlett. She’d taken up a perch on a chimney
after we’d stumbled across the last of the late night
streetwalkers. The woman, more vagabond than hooker, with thick
layers of worn clothing hiding her uncertain shape, staggered off
alone when morning came. With no