“Hank, I got those lab results back.”
“Yeah?” he said with his mouth full, turning in his office chair, part of a sandwich in his hand. I don't know how he could be eating, after all the carnage we'd seen last night. But then I saw it was a French Dip and then I wanted one. He had au jus dripping down his chin.
“Okay," I said. "So amongst the bodies: blood, obviously, and lots of it, burnt vinyl and leather residues, as well as copious ash, Brimstone to be exact. Hard alcohol, which accelerated the flames. Cocaine on the ceiling, charred flesh and lots of bodily fluids, mostly semen and you know, that was man-semen, but there was also dog semen and fish semen... Coming from a marlin... But get this: the lab found a lot of demon semen.”
“Carl,” Hank said to me, “Do you want the rest of my soda?” He looked at me dully and belched. It smelled like baked pickles. Hank's skin had the texture of angel food cake. He kept hot dogs in his desk. He wasn't bright, but you didn't need to be for this job.
“Hank, this means there was paranormal activity! Those teenagers went to their Black Metal show and through magick and scrawling runes and chanting their Nordic chants, they opened a portal, I'm sure of it!” He opened a package of moist wipes and cleaned his fingers, shook his thick hands at the wrist and just looked at me.
We got a welfare call from the Old Woman in the Shoe, that lousy bitch. Her kid had gone missing, so we went to the show. He wasn't there, though. We picked him up stealing hot cross buns. He couldn't even pay one a penny. We were done on this. The Vatican cops were at the scene. Suddenly the precinct dog came in. I kicked it, I was so pissed and it shrank away whining.
“Carl, demons aren't our jurisdiction. We just found a burnt VFW full of dead teenagers wearing homemade wristbands and white makeup. And top hats and shit like that. So they probably were practicing some ancient pagan rite. So what? Their death is just the same. We'll let God's police take care of them.”
What Hank didn't know that I am into demon bondage. I love nothing more than going to a cheap motel out by the freeway and going into a closet and opening a portal into the Nether-realms. An imp comes out and lashes me with its pointy tail and cackles at me and titters “You a bitch... You a little bi-itch...” and I come through the roof. The wife doesn't care; she's a centaur fetishist, herself. What tore me up that these kids, watching Blackest Ashen Skies, Dark Unicorn, Moldyrdrygylarr, Hellgape, whatever the flier said, had probably had the best demonic orgy ever, really a demented, fierce, dark sabbat with the forces of Hell. I mean there was demon semen spattered like tar all over the walls and solid layers of twisted corpses on the floor, a Satanic lasagne of burnt, intertwined bodies. What were these kids getting into? I remember in high school, there was a forest spirit who would rub you through your pants if you gave it enough dew, but it was in the shape of a pussywillow. I might as well be a virgin.
“Hank,” I said, “We're gonna take this thing on. I know we're only nursery rhyme cops, but I don't care. Maybe this is related to some nursery rhyme we don't even know about: 'the teenagers banging/ at a metal show/ the demons who screwed them/ where did they go?'”
He opened a bag of chips, put a handful in his mouth, slicked back his hair with his greasy hand. A fly buzzed in a circle counter to the wobbling ceiling fan. It was humid awful. Simple Simon was out in booking, his head bandaged, moaning. I wished he'd been at this thing; I could go back. Hank picked up a dossier off his desk and handed it to me.
“We have to find out who the dish ran away with,” he said, crunching.
I didn't care. Whatever it was, it wouldn't beat me, it wasn't evil and I couldn't fuck it.
