Chapter Thirteen

I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. At least this hotel room didn't have strange stains that looked as though something you'd rather not guess at had seeped down from the room above.

I could feel Shiree drifting off to sleep, it had taken ages to finally be sure she would stay that way. The art of hypnotizing your own host is a skill some demons never master partly because they find it too difficult. Many demons would not be able to find their way out of a paper bag let alone their host. Escape was the only thing that pushed them out of a body, to exit and re-enter was graduate school stuff. Most of the younger demons these days would find getting out of kindergarten a challenge.

"Okay she's under, I can't believe I agreed to do this, are you sure this is the only way. Doesn't your little bundle of powers have something else that might do the trick?" I could hear myself sounding pathetic but fulfilling this contract was putting me through the wringer. I did quiet, efficient normal contracts, this was my USP not poking a stick into a hornets' nest called Crowley and wiggling it around.

"I've told you, a hell hound will find her, they'll smell her on the piece of shawl. I know from meeting Crowley what a hell hound can do, it was quite near the front of his mind, he really loves those dogs doesn't he?" I could see Mercy was getting tired of telling me why, this had to be done, somewhere in her head there was a logic that didn't quite translate into any language I could understand.

"Shhh…keep your voice down, you'll wake her up," I whispered through gritted teeth. "After I've smoked out , she's really vulnerable and really weak, promise you'll stay with her, keep her safe I need to find her here to get back into otherwise I'm useless to you, just another bodiless demon looking for a home," I wasn't above playing the 'support a homeless demon' card.

"I know you've told me like a hundred times, I promise, girl scouts' honor , that I'll look after Shiree while you're gone," she crossed her heart in a less than convincing way.

"You're no girl scout Mercy. I want huge bouquets of red roses at my funeral ok," and with that I smoked out.

It had been a while since I'd been in hell, I usually avoided it, it was a bit chilly to be frank and I didn't do thermal underwear. Why people think hell is hot always escapes me, cold is far more miserable but then I have always worked better in hot climates.

Crowley seemed to have redecorated , no more endless queues it was all medieval castle and stone walls again, he had gone old school or maybe it would be called retro gothic. It took me a while to convince the jumped up little toad of a PA that I needed to see him, he blathered on about there not being a window open in his Majesty's diary for at least a year. I ripped up his appointment diary he was pouring over and left him wishing he had taken a sick day.

"She wants a hell hound, she is joking right, they're not some Chihuahua she can stick in her handbag!" Crowley bellowed.

"I keep telling you she isn't the handbag sort, she just has this strange belief that one of your hounds could track down her mother from sniffing this old bit of shawl she'd been carrying around for years, it's ridiculous." I thought I was making a good attempt at convincing him I was finding her request just as mad as he was. Then I did a retake and realised I did actually think it was mad.

Crowley suddenly put his game face on, the one he uses when he's being devious, which is most of the time but this was the intense devious look. I have studied his many faces over the centuries and this was bordering on scale 10 wily.

"If she wants a hound , then a hound she shall have and if it happens to accidentally rip her throat out then how can we be held responsible, it was what she wanted after all. Come with me I have one in mind."

The kennels smelt rancid, even at rest the hounds seemed to drool and fart gases that could knock out a whole battalion of demons. I was glad they were caged up, although they didn't attack demons, well not unless Crowley ordered them too. He walked up and down the cages , stopping to pet the odd one.

"This is the result of centuries of good breeding, Ripper here has a pedigree that nearly goes back to Lucifer's fall, they can track anyone or anything and they won't stop until they find what they are after and then of course they can tear a man to pieces in less than 20 seconds, I've timed them personally." I tried to nod and make encouraging noises, the hounds could smell my heart wasn't in the whole dog breeding conversation, they threw themselves at the cage door snarling and snapping.

"They can smell fear, try and keep it together or they'll be howling all bloody night and a couple have got to work tonight, two contracts to collect and I haven't fed them for three days just to make sure they are sharp." He scratched Ripper behind his ear and the hound quietened. I was hoping Ripper wasn't going to be loaned to us or rather Mercy, I would be taking a very back seat on all this canine nonsense.

" Come round here, I want you to see Flea she's perfect for the job. Totally uncontrollable and a nightmare around the other hounds, she's put two of them out of action for weeks, nearly ripped their bloody throats out. She won't even listen to me and that's not on. I was going to feed her to the other hounds because she's no good to me but now I can see that she will be perfect for our little friend."

We rounded a corner and there away from the other hounds was Flea, she was the ugliest hell hound I had ever seen and they were all plug ugly. Imagine a mastiff the size of a pony but with folds of skin like one of those wrinkly Shar-pei aberrations. It was the small horns that gave them away as hell hounds though, that and the immense teeth when they opened their big saliva drenched mouths.

"So how do we take delivery so to speak? I'm thinking caged would be good." Crowley laughed, he seemed to think that was intentionally funny, I laughed as well just to try and seem as if I was in on the joke.

"You pop home and Flea here will be at your door in a few hours, she can be fast when she puts her mind to it. I'll make sure she's hungry that should up the likelihood of a little 'accident' shall we say." He was grinning from ear to ear, I almost laughed myself as Flea lunged at him through the bars of her cage and ripped a huge chunk out of his Armani suit.

"What should I do?" I asked hoping he would say something helpful.

"Keep you bloody fingers out of the way if you want your meat suit to be able to play the piano again.".