Eudora began her story, "Since the beginning, there have been rules put down by the Creator, He Who We Cannot Name."
"God," I added helpfully. I was sitting on one of the beds next to Demie, and the Enforcer was sitting on the other bed next to the sleeping Dianna Shepherd. Eros and his mother were sitting across from each other on the hotel room's only chairs.
Demie gave me a jab in the ribs with her elbow. "Yeah, dummy, obviously."
Eudora continued, "After Earth was created, it was found that some humans did not follow His laws. Hell was created shortly thereafter, as He needed someplace to put those wayward souls, as they could not stay on Earth after dying, and they could not go..." She pointed upward. "Demons were created to manage Hell, but to shepherd souls, which are powerful, the demons had to be made powerful as well. To keep the demons in line, The Deal was created. It restricts a demon's powers in certain ways, like limiting succubus' and incubus' soul sucking abilities to a kiss. It also keeps the demons confined to Hell until a human summons them, but then the summoned demon is under the human's control. When the human dies, their soul goes to Hell and the demon returns. That soul is then the demon's to do as they wish with it."
I glanced over at Demie. She had confirmed as much after we captured Eros after the Snuggle Bottom mystery. When I died, she would torture me endlessly in Hell. I gulped.
"So what does this have to do with Shepherd's baby?" Eros asked.
Eudora looked uncomfortable. "Some demons get destroyed and have to be replaced, and they aren't just created from nothing. The method is complicated -- I won't go into it -- but somehow Cassandra knew it and directed Demie and Tom to undergo the ritual with Shepherd at the exact right time.
I sat up straighter, my eyes wide. "So Seth..."
The Enforcer spoke up, "Baby Seth is a demon that is not bound by The Deal. Cassandra manipulated you in order to get her hands on him, and she's had him for weeks now."
I rubbed my temples. "Holy shit."
Shepherd stirred and sat up. "Did...did you say Seth? Did we find him?"
She didn't look good. I realized that her emaciated condition from a few weeks ago would have been from Seth draining her, since his incubus powers wouldn't have been locked into a kiss like with the other demons present. If a baby did that to her, he'd be unstoppable when he got older. Plus, the dimensional pressure here in Gehenna was affecting her too. "Not yet, Shepherd," I told her, "go back to sleep."
She nodded and lay down again.
We all leaned forward and I whispered, "So we find the baby, make him part of The Deal, and we're good?"
"Easier said than done," Demie commented.
"What? We have three demons and an Enforcer...once we find Cassandra, she'll have no chance, right?"
"If we find her," Eudora replied. "Gehenna's big; a pocket dimension with doors everywhere, including some that go to other dimensions."
...
Suddenly the Enforcer and I were running headlong down a corridor for some reason. Another awareness jump? I felt like the guy from Memento. Gehenna's dimensional pressure was playing havoc with my head again.
I saw blonde hair swish around a corner ahead. Not Shepherd, so it must be Cassandra? The Enforcer was ahead of me, and then she skidded to a halt.
"Grenade! Down!" She turned and leapt into me, and then there was a loud BOOM.
We went down, me on my back and the Enforcer on top of me. Then the roof came down on top of both of us.
...
"Tom?"
"Five more minutes, Mom..."
"Wake the fuck up, dick!"
I felt someone lightly slapping the side of my face. I opened my eyes, but everything was dark. I could barely move, and it was hard to breathe. "What...happened? I asked.
