Hellfire Drop (Brimstone Cycle Book 2)(4)

Finding out just what, or maybe even who, I could use to kill Ole Beeze would be hard work. But I could deal with that, so long as he was dead when I finished; maybe this new devil could be a resource? I did supply him with this new body, however, unintentionally, so maybe he’d be grateful enough to lend a hand. I’d allow myself a moment to sit here at the diner and finish my coffee. Once done, the real work will begin.

I’ve had a minute, maybe two, to think on that at the table to myself before I notice that the mood in the diner has changed. There’s a new, muted quality to the snippets of conversation filling the place now. It’s not a quieting, or a silence, but rather a shift in the pitch of the words I can hear - as if the speakers are constrained, or distracted, or somehow holding themselves back.

A quick glance around at the patrons of the diner show me the source of the change. The table full of cops at the other side of the room are acting differently. They still joke with each other, slap backs and show smiles, but the laughter I’d noticed before, the levity, appears to be gone. When I look at them for a little while longer, I notice that several of their number seem to be taking turns sending little looks and sharp glances to another part of the room.

I track their gaze to find them looking at the doorway of the diner, not far from me. There’s a young, sandy haired man standing there. He’s tall and muscular, but not overly so. Whatever strength he has is built for endurance, as opposed to display.

My first clue of his backward is the hair on his head. A little shaggy, but not too many weeks removed from a military crew cut. My second clue is even better - a black and white U.S. Marine Corps tattoo on his arm. If he’s active duty, but on leave, then he won’t be my problem. The deputies here will know how to deal with him if things become the usual kind of rowdy.

There is, however, another option. The one that’s chewing away at the back of my mind, given the most recent guest at my table.

Mercenary.

My lip curls up as I come up as I connect the dots. The devil wearing Tom has fucked me over. Tom had access to all kinds of shooters, so it makes sense that he’d send one after me for a bit of wetwork. For a moment, I wonder why he hadn’t had the balls to do it himself, but then I remember the first rule of brimstone bargaining. While in creation, a devil can’t kill a human who’s got an ongoing pact with another devil.

None of this tells me why he’d want me dead in the first place. But then again, I’ve never known a devil who’d needed a reason to be a dick.

In the time it takes me to think this through, the young mercenary takes a look around the diner. He skims the table’s worth of cops, before finally coming to a stop on me. He doesn’t look my way for long, but there’s no mistaking the look of recognition on his face. Whoever this is, he’s come here for me. And while I can’t remember my time under the control of that bastard Ole Beeze, what I actually can remember of my last encounters with a mercenary shop is unpleasant, to say the least.

I take that as my signal to get the Hell out of here. I stand up from my place at the diner booth, and pray that my legs hold steady as I do. I’m rewarded with a wobble that only lasts for a moment, before I start walking, jelly legged, over to the cash register perched up on the bar seating.

The waitress from before shows up and takes station behind it a few moments later. She smiles at me, and when I ask her if I have anything left to pay on my bill (it’s a bad idea to dine and dash when sharing a room with police) she shakes her head and tells me that the man who’d been sharing my table took care of the bill.

“Thank you.” I say, then a moment later. “Would you mind pointing me to the ladies’ room?”

The woman makes a gesture over to the far side of the diner, near where the table’s worth of sheriff’s deputies are now busy eyeballing the mercenary at the door. They may not be able to recognize him for exactly what he is, but they can sense trouble enough. After all, it’s hard to mistake a guard dog for a show pony, even if you can’t guess it’s breed.

I walk over, past the table of cops, without attracting a second glance from any of them save for the old retiree. He dips his head and sends a crooked smile my way as I head to the bathroom. The expression is a bit too intimate for my comfort. I can’t tell if he’s being a letch or just a nice southern gentleman offering the reassurance of his protection to little ol’ me.

Whatever the answer, I offer him a nod and timid smile in return. His friends already have their attention on the biggest threat in the room. I don’t want any of it diverted to me.

I enter the door marked for the bathrooms, and find a small hallway with three short branches inside. I look around each corner to see if one of the hallways has a window, or better yet, an employee’s exit to the driveway outside. Two branches are marked as bathrooms, and the third leads me nowhere but a stubby broom closet. Disappointed, I enter the ladies room and am pleased to find a window inside, maybe eight or nine feet from the floor.

The exit isn’t much, a squat pane of glass that measures maybe one foot by three. I do a hop, and a grab, and try to pull myself high enough to hold onto the edge. From close up, I’m able to catch a view of the latch keeping the window shut, but can’t actually grab it and open the window one handed. I try again, this time bracing my leg on a nearby sink bolted into the wall. My body is either still too weakened from the process of regaining myself from Ole Beeze, or simply weaker than what I’d remembered being before. Maybe Ole Beeze skimped on leg day while walking around in me. Either way, I need a new way out of the diner before things get dicey.