Sinners
Chapter 2
Suspicious Minds
We can't go on together
With suspicious minds (suspicious minds)
And we can't build our dreams
On suspicious minds
Aside from a few strung out imp hobos, the street was empty. And at this time of the day (just shy of nine A.M.) on a Saturday morning, this far from downtown, most of the inhabitants living in the surrounding apartments would be too busy sleeping off hangovers and worse to be out and about. It was unlikely that many demons would be driving or walking by for another few hours.
Hush had set the meeting time this early to avoid unwanted eyes and "interested parties" starting trouble, but the relative peace and quiet was a nice bonus.
Hell had no shortage of small torments, but the inescapable, nonstop noise and stench of the city was the worst of them, in Hush's mind. The ever-present stench of industrial fumes, urine, and a hundred other unpleasant aromas was still nearly overpowering out here, but at least the nonstop noise was distant and quiet enough to ignore.
Between the lack of annoying noise and the lack of worry about unexpected trouble, it was much easier to focus on his imminent task; the rubble that used to be an apartment that he was now staring at, leaning as he was against the passenger door of his minivan.
The place was certainly a puzzle. Granted, Hush hadn't exactly been a "resident" of Hell for all that long - just about five years - but he'd neither seen nor heard even a rumor of angelic weapons capable of doing this. Seraphim steel knives, swords, knuckle dusters, or even bullets? Seen them all before. But this? Miss Mary's assertion that it looked as though an angelic bomb had gone off was accurate. Rubble was strewn all over the street, blocking half the road (Hush had been forced to park his van right in front of the roadblock). The neighboring buildings - seemingly all but abandoned already - had taken significant damage from the blast as well.
Even at a glance, it was obvious that it was no ordinary bomb. Everything around had a sort of slight "glow" to it, something that hadn't shown up in Mary's photos, though she did write about it in her notes. It wasn't truly visible to the naked eye. Looking at the rubble and wreckage made Hush's eyes hurt, like looking outside on a snow-blanketed sunny day with that subtle piercing harshness that only the touch of seraphim steel could produce. Yet there wasn't any actual, visible brightness that he could detect. The fact that the various shattered bricks and shards of concrete were smoking and sizzling as though dipped in a fryer was just the icing on top.
Slight trepidation festered at the back of Hush's mind. He wasn't exactly unused to getting involved in gang affairs, though he did avoid trying to get in the middle of outright wars, but something about this didn't seem right. Weapons of this sort of caliber should be in high demand, and thus the market for them should have been cornered by local gangs almost immediately. And yet, as Mary's recorded "interviews" showed, none of the incidents thus far had been gang-related. So far as any of the perps knew, the major gangs around didn't even know about them.
More worryingly, the perps didn't even seem to know how they had done what they did. True, they were all tweaked out junkies trying to get drug money and that likely played a part, but still...
Put bluntly, everything about the situation was fucky. Hush didn't like it one bit.
"Why are we out here, boss?"
The question shook Hush out of his reverie, and he turned to the salamander demon beside him. Blue World, one of Hush's employees. The demon was quite tall - just over two meters - and dressed in a subtly gaudy dark purple overcoat and khaki trouser combo that was a few shades darker than his purple skin, though the coat was open (revealing that the demon had no shirt on underneath) and lacked zippers or buttons of any kind to close it. His expression was one of mildly annoyed indifference; his default expression, albeit one that fit his general demeanor towards his (after)life.
Hush quirked an eyebrow, which elicited a deeper frown from Blue World.
"You know what I mean." The salamander gestured to the smoking apartment, peering at his employer through the limp, hairlike tendrils hanging from his head. "Whatever happened to not getting mixed up with high-tier horseshit?"
"We don't know that anyone big is involved."
"The hell we don't. Name one wingrunner asshole going around handing out angel bombs."
For a moment, the wolf demon didn't respond. Blue's words reflected his own thoughts for the most part. This certainly seemed to have the hallmarks of a big player making a move.
"Name one ganglord who'd hand out angel bombs to junkies," Hush eventually retorted.
Blue World had no answer to that, and he turned his attention back to the ruins. Frankly, Hush didn't know the answer to it either. The situation made no sense regardless of which angle one looked at it from.
"It still stinks. We shouldn't even be considering this job." The salamander gave Hush a suspicious look. "You aren't actually planning on letting her take out a hit, are you?"
The wolf demon frowned and shifted his weight from one leg to the other, glancing once again at the smoking, quietly sizzling apartment.
"I don't know yet."
"Boss," Blue was a mite incredulous now. "We stick with PI work for a reason. You want a repeat of the Farewell Job?"
Hush winced at that. He did not want a repeat of the Farewell Job. Not one bit.
"We'll decide once we take a closer look. Give it a chance, Blue."
The tall salamander gave an annoyed huff, but said nothing more.
"Where's Fracture, anyway?" The wolf demon asked. "Normally he rides with you, doesn't he?"
"Do I look like my murderer's keeper?" A note of snippiness found its way into Blue World's voice.
"Blue, how long are you gonna be on this? He's not the guy who killed you."
"Whatever, close enough."
Hush gave the salamander a mild glare. After a moment, Blue World relented, but not without a noticeable growl of annoyance in his voice. "He said he had a lead on missing persons."
Hush thought for a moment. He had several MP jobs open, as it was the second most common type that clients brought to him, so it took a second to remember which one exactly Fracture had been working on. "The incubus, right? Reak, I think his name was."
"That's the one. Frac said he found a lead and wanted to squeeze a few witnesses."
"Mmh."
Wolf's Eye couldn't exactly drop everything to focus on one job. The Reak Job had been a frustrating one, too. Chasing down leads for it was as good a reason to be absent as any.
The light rap of a hand against metal sounded, prompting Hush and Blue World to glance up at the roof of the minivan they were leaning against. Perched atop the vehicle was Highway Star, keeping a lookout while crouched in an almost comically overdone position, as if he was trying to combine a crouch with a supermodel pose.
To this day Hush had no idea why the Stand insisted on turning everything it did into a pose. He didn't remember Highway Star doing that while he was alive.
Highway Star pointed, but there was no need. Not even a second after the wolf Stand caught his attention, Hush's ears perked at the sound of tires crackling over stones in the street. All three demons turned their attention to the car coming up behind their van; a midnight blue Holden sedan with a familiar pinkish-purple demoness in the driver's seat.
Hush's eyebrows rose. A brand new Holden Astra, and a top of the line version to boot? That was a bit surprising. An Astra was nothing special so far as cars went back on Earth, but to have a car that was even remotely new in Hell was costly. The wolf demon found himself curious as to how a schoolteacher could afford a car at all, let alone a brand new one that was actually fairly nice all told. She didn't seem like the kind of demon who would use the funds stashed away for this job on something like a car.
The car stopped just behind Hush's minivan, it's engine shutting off as Mary exited and made her way over to the three with a cigarette in hand.
"Looks exactly the way you described it," Hush stated as the demoness drew near. "You sure it's safe?"
"Absolutely." Mary tapped the ashes from the end of her cig. "I've tested it several times with previous incidents. You'll have to be careful, but by now you won't need to worry about spontaneously melting, at least."
The demoness turned her attention to Blue World and extended her hand. He regarded it for a moment, then pushed himself off from the van and trodded towards the ruined apartment.
"Let's get this over with," he groused as he walked away. Mary looked after him with a mild glare. She seemed annoyed, but not particularly surprised.
It was a sentiment that Hush shared. Not much that could be done about it, though. This was Hell. Demons with professional attitudes were hardly a dime a dozen, and most that had such an attitude on arrival didn't keep it for long.
Frankly, Hush wondered how Mary kept up such a professional demeanor - hair-trigger temper notwithstanding. It was certainly a challenge for the wolf demon, and he didn't deal with kids everyday.
The tan-furred demon gave his potential client an apologetic look, then turned around and tapped on the partially open passenger side window of his minivan. The cream-colored hellhound sitting in the driver's seat - Crymini, his secretary - didn't respond aside from one of her ears twitching and kept her eyes on her hellphone screen.
"Keep the engine idling, and keep an eye out for the usual suspects."
"A'ight." The hellhound gave a thumbs up.
"That means ungluing your eyes from your phone." His voice took on a note of annoyance. Crymini's only response was to change her thumbs up to a raised middle finger. "Crymini, I'm serious."
"Oh fuck off, boss." She finally looked up to glare at Hush. "I know. Not my first fucking time bein' out on a job. Fuck's sake."
The wolf demon said nothing in response, merely matching her glare, until Crymini relented and turned the key in the minivan's ignition. She slouched further into the seat with her phone still in front of her face as the old Grand Carnival's battered six cylinder coughed to rattling life, though she at least held the phone higher up so she could more easily glance out the windows.
That would have to do. One always needed to pick their battles, and down here Hush needed to be a lot pickier about them. The wolf demon turned away from the van and started after Blue World, who by now was standing in front of the (oddly intact) front door. Mary followed after him, while a few seconds later Highway Star hopped down from the van's roof and followed as well.
Curiously, the purple-skinned demoness was silent. She seemed interested in finding out exactly what the three demons intended to do, but didn't ask any questions. Neither Hush nor Blue World nor Highway Star had any equipment with them save the clothes on their backs; hardly the ideal setup for investigating a bomb site under most circumstances. Of course, being Stand users changed the game, but the majority of clients had no way of knowing that. Most clients had at least one or two questions about how they would conduct their information, where all their equipment was, and other similar assorted inquiries.
It was odd and mildly offputting, but Hush was not surprised. He remembered Mary mentioning the night before that she worked at the school on 66th. He knew of that school, and who owned it. Mary was undoubtedly familiar with Stands and the weirdness surrounding them, considering her superintendent was a Stand user. Most likely she put together that Hush and his employees - save for Crymini - were Stand users the moment she saw their complete lack of investigative gear.
Blue World pushed on the front door of the ruined building as the other three demons approached. Rather than opening, the door simply fell inward, no longer actually held in place by anything as its hinges had been blasted to uselessness.
The four demons filtered into what was at one point the main hallway of the structure, where the tenants would be able to access their specific apartments. It had been destroyed nearly to the point of being unrecognizable. Few of the walls were any taller than waist height, and the carpeted floor - though curiously free of any burns or scorches - was barely visible beneath the rubble and dust.
Hush hissed quietly and drew his right hand back quickly from the drywall he'd set it on as he entered, wringing it a few times to shake off the pain. Across from him, Highway Star's right hand twitched, and the Stand balled it into a fist.
For a second Hush examined the pads of his hand, but aside from looking a bit reddened and still stinging, there didn't seem to be any lasting damage, like putting one's hand on a not-quite-cooled stove for just a second too long. The thicker pads of his feet (or rather, paws) weren't harmed by the angelic aftermath, it seemed. The sizzling dust and pebbles he stood on produced an uncomfortable, tingling heat, but it was bearable.
Highway Star crouched from its newfound perch on one of the shorter remnants of the building's outer walls, facing in such a way that it could watch both the building's occupants and anyone entering the property from outside. Mary was still carefully picking her way into the building, her hooves providing considerably worse footing in the ruins than Hush's paws or Blue World's shoes.
"Alright, Blue," Hush said to the tall salamander. "You're up."
Blue World grunted in acknowledgement, then faced away from everyone else, standing as he was almost in the exact center of the ruined apartment. His arms were spread wide as if to embrace someone.
"[Moody Blues: Knights in White Satin]!"
The moment Blue World finished his declaration, a series of six glowing purple shapes separated from him in a ring, each largely indistinct but slightly humanoid. The shapes rapidly solidified into what looked at first to be copies of Blue World - purple-skinned salamander demons - sans clothing. However, the six were entirely nude, and lacked any distinguishing features, most notably faces. Even their skin seemed oddly unfinished, like a 3D texture that had not rendered properly.
Stand-powered copies of the tall salamander. His "Knights in White Satin."
The knights stood ramrod straight, all facing their user with about as much life in them as a mannequin. In unison, the clones all loosed a low drone, like an old phone's busy tone, and they floated off the ground.
Three of the six floated up to where the building's second story used to be, where now there was just empty air. They took up seemingly random positions; two looking as though they were in the midst of a vicious argument, and the third laying down haphazardly in the empty space. Two of the remaining Stand-clones floated through the remnants of drywall, sitting in slouched positions as if a couch was positioned beneath them and they were engrossed in a nonexistent TV in front of them. The last knight moved only about a meter and a half away, with its feet phased through the rubble at its feet to reach the floor below. It was frozen with its hand held out in front of it as if to pluck something from a nonexistent countertop.
In unison they emitted another dial tone and then transformed. Unfinished and blank skin shifted and changed in color, while bones and muscle melted together and reformed, until the six resembled more ordinary demons. All imps, save for the one nearest to Blue World, which had morphed into a profusely sweating, overweight salamandrine instead.
"That everyone?" Hush asked, his arms folded and tone neutral. Blue World turned to him before answering, showing that a long, narrow screen had appeared on his forehead. On the screen was a timestamp that read "00:00:04:09:33:17".
"At this point, yes. Six actors, none of them look like the type we want."
Hush nodded. He doubted the replay would take long to introduce the "actor" that they were looking for. Mary's notes on the timing of the explosion were imprecise, but Blue World was remarkably good at guessing the best time to start his replays. He'd guessed right before with much less to go on.
The salamander snapped his fingers, and the replay began.
Immediately, screaming rang out from above, causing both Hush's and Highway Star's ears to flatten in annoyance. The two Imps dwelling upstairs, both female, sounded hoarse. They had clearly been screaming at one another for a while before Blue's timestamp. Half of what they were saying was angry gibberish, but Hush gathered that the two were a couple who had each just discovered that the other was pregnant.
The Stand-Imp across the hallway who was reclining in empty air - Hush presumed he was laying on a bed - glared briefly at where the wall would have been that separated him from the arguing couple, then flipped over on his stomach and pressed a nonexistent pillow on top of his head.
Meanwhile, the sweating, panting salamandrine scooped something - keys, most likely - up from where there had likely been a countertop before the explosion, judging from the wood splinters at the transformed knight's feet.
"Oh, fok," the salamandrine grumbled as he waddled through what was once the doorway to his apartment, pausing to pantomime closing the door and then locking it with his key. He then paused again, wiping sweat from his brow and muttering more curses. Every action, including breathing, seemed to take an inordinate amount of effort for the obese demon. He turned around, putting his keys in his pocket and facing towards the building's front door, and thus towards the non-replayed demons. The reptilian demon's four sunken, tired eyes blinked out of sync, one after the other, as he focused on something or someone that Hush couldn't see.
Abruptly, the salamandrine's eyes widened, and his hands shot up into the air. "Hey...heyheyhey eish! Kalm, boet, kalm! Easy ea-!"
Immediately the shouting stopped from both the fat salamandrine and the two imps on the floor above him. All six transformed knights froze in time as the replay paused.
"And that'll be our man." Blue World stepped back a bit, then moved a few centimeters to his left so that he was face to face with his transformed knight. Without another word, he began to shrink and morph, quickly taking the form of a disheveled, particularly short male imp with short, straight horns. The imp turned to look at Hush with the salamander demon's familiar, perpetually annoyed expression. "Any requests?"
"None yet," the tan-furred wolf responded. "Play it all the way through, then we'll tweak it as needed."
The transformed Blue World nodded, then faced the Stand-salamandrine again, taking up a lopsided stance and almost cartoonishly angry expression, his right hand outstretched as if holding a gun.
Shouting exploded again as the replay started once more.
"-sy, Goddamn! I've done nothing! Why do you-"
"-ISS-SUCKIN' PIG-FUCKER! GONNA FUCK ME OVER, WILL YA!? SWEAR TO FUCKIN' CHRIST I'LL RIP OUT YER EYES AND FUCK YER SOCKETS RAW! GONNA RIP OFF YER-"
The Blue-imp was screaming at the top of his lungs, swaying uneasily where he stood. His movements were twitchy, and his voice cracked several times. Clearly he had been either high or coming down from a high when this confrontation happened. The salamandrine spent a second or two sputtering before falling silent, staring at the imp with wide, frightened eyes as he continued screaming.
"-SWEAR ON MY MA'S ASS MOLE I'LL RIP OUT YER TONGUE AND SWAP YOUR DICK FOR IT! I'LL SHOVE MY FOOT SO FAR UP YER ASS YOU'LL HAVE TOES FER FUCKIN' TEETH! I'LL- I'LL-..."
Finally the imp ran out of steam and doubled over to catch his breath. Hush couldn't help but be a bit impressed. The entire fifteen second tirade had been done in a single breath.
Both the imp and salamandrine remained quiet and panting for a moment, the reptilian demon breathing so hard he seemed ready to keel over. The sweat beading on his scales had become even more disgustingly excessive.
"Four...fuckin'...years," the imp panted out shakily as he stood upright again. His eye twitched and involuntary tremors rocked his hands. The salamandrine was nervously eyeing the unseen gun in his hands, where it seemed the imp's shaky finger was resting on the trigger. "We been bros for four fuckin' years, and you gonna do me like this?"
"W-what are you talking about?" the salamandrine's eyes darted about nervously as he kept his hands in the air. "You are still boet to me, ja? I do nothing to you!"
"Don't play dumb with me!" The imp's voice cracked again. "Yer a hog and them bullets was pig iron, ya shitlickin' fool! I wanted to ice some fucksticks, not tickle their fuckin' balls. I got my ass on a platter and my stash stolen cuz'a you!"
"Pig iron!? I sell no pig iron!" The reptilian seemed offended despite his situation. "Ag man, I sell good steel! All seraphim, ja, from exorcist spears. It is pure! I take pride in my product."
"Oh, izzat what you call it? Pride?"
"Yes!" The salamandrine's fear was momentarily forgotten, replaced with indignant anger as he raised hands fell to his hips. "No pig iron. I sell only good steel. That is pride!"
For a second, the imp just stared at the obese demon, as still as someone going through a vicious withdrawal could be, his expression a mask of disdain.
"A'ight then, let's test that, yeah? I got yer bullets in the chamber. Guess if this," he waved the invisible gun in his hand, his expression morphing into a grin, "Kills ya, it's all bullshit bad luck that my ass got beat. Then if ya live, ya lied and I turn yer ass ta grass with my knife. Howzabout it?"
The salamandrine's eyes widened in panic as he opened his mouth to protest, but he wasn't quick enough. The imp pulled the trigger on his gun.
Both demons looked confused for a moment. Without the gun being present in the replay, Hush couldn't know for absolute certain, but he was fairly sure the gun had simply clicked when the trigger was pulled.
Thump.
That drew Hush's attention. [Moody Blues: Knights in White Satin]'s replays didn't include anything but an actor and the clothes they wore without a workaround. Nothing from the replay could be making noise unless it was firmly attached to one of the actors involved.
All eyes - those of the replayed actors and the demons who were actually present alike - were drawn to the space between the shaking dwarf imp and the obese salamandrine. A hand sat on the floor with a slowly expanding puddle of black blood beneath it, still clutching an invisible pistol.
In unison, everyone watching blinked, then looked to the imp's right arm, which now ended in a stump that was leaking ichor onto the ground in a steady stream.
"Uh…" The imp was clearly too flabbergasted to register the pain. The salamandrine in front of him was no less confused. His gaze snapped back and forth between the stump and his severed hand, not comprehending what had just happened. "The fuck?"
Suddenly, the disembodied hand twitched, then began to convulse. It maintained its grip on the gun, but began flopping to and fro on the floor.
"Th-...the fuck!?" The imp was clearly alarmed now. He squinted, shading his eyes with his intact hand as he watched the seemingly possessed hand, as if it was shining a blinding light. "Oho, fuck no. Fuck this, fuck all this!"
"Where are you going?" The salamandrine yelled as the short imp turned tail and ran out of the ruins through where the front door had originally been, phasing straight through Hush on his way out. "Why are you running? Fokker, what did you do!? Oh fok…"
Hush glanced at Blue World's transformed self bolting out towards the street, then looked back to the salamandrine demon with a quirked eyebrow. The overweight reptilian was shielding his eyes and squinting just like the imp had been a moment ago, slowly backing away from the apparently brightly glowing disembodied hand still flopping around on the floor.
Without warning, the hand exploded. It wasn't a very dramatic explosion; the hand just disappeared with a puff of smoke and a pop like the sound of a bursting balloon. That, however, was merely the extent of the explosion caught in the replay. Clearly the real thing must have been considerably more dramatic, given its effect on the demons present
All six of the demons within the building seemed to just...fly apart. Where the salamandrine, arguing imp couple, and the other actors were one moment, expanding clouds of red mist and viscera were the next, with the transformation accompanied with the sound of pulping flesh and shattering bones. The organic debris flew beyond the ruined apartment's walls almost faster than the eye could see, vaporizing and spreading out as it went until it seemed to disappear. The detonation had to have packed tremendous power to completely eviscerate the demons like that, and through multiple walls no less.
But the replay wasn't over.
The wolf demon quickly made his way to the doorway so that he could watch the replay's one remaining, intact actor. Mary, who was still standing next to the front door, watched as well. She'd clearly been startled by the explosion, but her expression now was mainly one of confusion as she watched.
The still quivering imp sat five or six meters from the front door, laying in a clear spot in the debris (likely thrown from his hooves by the explosion), gawping at the apartment complex. After a moment, a synapse seemed to connect somewhere in the diminutive demon's head, and he shot to his hooves and bolted down the sidewalk, black blood flinging wildly from the stump where his right hand had been a minute prior.
The imp froze not five steps into his run, however. Another pause in the replay.
As Hush, Highway Star, and Mary approached, the imp unfroze and turned towards them. Gone was the twitchyness and wild anger from the replay. In its place was Blue World's calm, always-irritated demeanor.
"Well that was certainly enlightening," the "imp" said, examining his now bloodless hand-stump. He spoke in the same voice as the replay's imp actor, but the tone and demeanor were unmistakably that of Hush's salamander employee.
"Got what you need?" Hush asked. The transformed salamander gave his boss a significant look, knowing which questions Hush was really asking.
"Yeah," he said simply, knowing better than to go into details with Mary present. Some details of his Stand were strictly need-to-know, and Mary most certainly didn't need to know.
Hush turned to Mary, smiling. "We'll take the case."
Far from looking relieved however, the satyress just seemed suspicious, glaring at the wolf demon with narrowed eyes.
"...Alright, I'll bite," she said. "What's this actually about? I get wanting to confirm my notes to make sure I wasn't blowing smoke up your ass, but really? Why have me here for this, and what's with the theatrics?"
"Because you'd be here anyway, for one," Highway Star spoke up this time in his deep monotone, taking Mary by surprise. "You spent months investigating this on your own, so we assumed you would want an active role. That's fine within reason, and as long as you aren't interfering. But it does mean you'd need to know just how we operate. Were we wrong?"
"...No."
"That wasn't the only reason, either," Hush interjected. "I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to take a look around before taking the job. We had to be sure we had something to work with; a lead, a suspect, anything." He spared a glance towards Blue World, who was shifting back into his true form as he walked back towards the apartment. "And it looks like we have a lead."
Mary thought for a moment.
"Fair enough." She put her cigarette to her mouth. "So what now?"
"We run through it again, pausing as needed to make sure we didn't miss anything. Then we talk pricing." Hush smiled again. "I believe you mentioned a two hundred thousand soul guarantee."
Mary blinked, then groaned and slapped a palm to her face. "Should have kept that in the holster."
"Probably." The tan-furred demon kept his smile as he turned back towards the apartment, readying to follow Blue World. The smile faded as he approached however.
"I got yer bullets in the chamber," the imp had said.
Hush looked up at the smoking ruins. Seraphim steel bullets were nothing new, but what manner of angelic bullet could cause something like that? So far as the wolf demon knew, none could. Even if those bullets were responsible, how did the wingrunner responsible for them not realize it? The salamandrine clearly hadn't known what was going to happen before the explosion. Hush had a feeling these questions were not going to be fully answered today.
If nothing else, this job was going to be a fascinating one.