Free The Brimstone Deception by Lisa Shearin Page B

Gedeon’s head.
    â€œLooks like you went one round too many with one of the boys downstairs,” Ian told him.
    My partner wasn’t talking about the guys in SPI’s motor pool.
    Bert just nodded. “After what you two saw in that apartment, I was an idiot for getting in the ring.” The big guy shrugged. “But taking punches is part of my job.”
    I nearly said, “It shouldn’t be,” but he was right. We knew the risks of the work when we’d signed on. It was just that some of us risked more than others. I merely pointed out warded supernatural criminals. Bert talked to dead people, and most of those people had gotten themselves dead by violent means. To me, that was the psychic equivalent of going around and sticking your bare hand in a hole in the ground. You never knew what you were going to find.
    Or what was going to find you.
    I had a good idea of what had found Bert.
    The same thing that’d seen me from the other side of that portal.
    â€œI need to talk fast before Doc Stephens comes in here and tries to give me a sedative.”
    I didn’t miss Bert’s emphasis on “tries.” I could see the necromancer being a bad patient.
    â€œWhat did you see?” Ian asked quietly.
    â€œFor starters, I can confirm that class-five demon.”
    â€œToo bad.”
    â€œYeah.”
    I concentrated on taking air in and blowing air out.
    Today was my first experience with demons. Like many Southerners from small towns, if someone asked you if you thought demons were real, you gave the Sunday school answer of “yes.” But they weren’t something you thought about on a day-to-day basis. Even working at SPI, you knew certain things were real, but you never really put religion together with anything you might run into on the job. At least I hadn’t.
    Until now.
    By helping Bert break a hold a demon had on him, I could’ve put myself in its crosshairs. And if that same demon was what I had seen on the other side of that portal, he’d now met me twice.
    Cold sweat prickled across my skin at the thought.
    I knew without a doubt that I’d help Bert again in a heartbeat, but I really hoped I didn’t have to.
    Bert noticed.
    â€œYou look like you need this bed more than I do.”
    â€œIt’s just been a long day already.” That wasn’t a lie. I tried on a smile for size. “Trust me, I’m gonna do my best not to end up in an infirmary bed.”
    Or in a stainless steel drawer next to Sar Gedeon.
    Bert grimaced as he pulled himself up further in the bed. Dr. Stephens might have the right idea of sedating Bert to make him get some rest.
    â€œI saw them kill the elf,” he told us. “I saw it because they wanted me—or whoever tried a PML—to see them work.”
    â€œPML?” I asked.
    â€œPostmortem link.”
    All corporations had their acronyms, but SPI was a special snowflake.
    â€œYour higher class demons are arrogant bastards,” Ian said.
    Bert snorted. “Or drama queens. You two talked to Marty yet?”
    â€œMartin DiMatteo,” Ian said in response to my confused expression. Then he grinned. “You don’t want to get Marty and Bert started at company parties. They try to outdo each other with work war stories.”
    â€œI’ll try to avoid doing that.” Some stories are better left untold, especially if they involved demons and dead people.
    â€œNo, we haven’t seen Marty,” Ian said, “but the boss wants to bring him in on this one.”
    â€œA demon coming through a portal and ripping the insides out of an elf drug lord. Marty will love this one.”
    No, I definitely didn’t want to be around when Bert and Marty started storytime.
    â€œOur Class Five—or his cohort—left me that present on purpose,” Bert told us. “The elf never had a chance.”
    â€œYou saw this from Gedeon’s point of view?” Ian