“If you gentlemen could just step back to the wall away from the door,” Ryder said, “we’ll get your friend to a restroom.”
They shuffled backward, and Ryder smiled. He’d gotten them to agree with him and do what he said.
The guy I’d hit said, “I need to piss.”
“One at a time,” Ryder said. “Ladies first.” He opened the holding cell door, but only a small crack. “Come on out,” he said. “What was your name again?”
“Lori,” she said.
“Ryder,” he offered with a nod, and that was hook, line, and sinker. Even if it was just the exchange of names, it was an agreement given and taken. “Nice to meet you. Go ahead with Chief Reed.”
She wasn’t shackled and her hands weren’t zip tied. I didn’t have my gun on me. But the bathroom was a very short trip down the hall where the other officers, and the security cameras we had in the building, could keep tabs on us.
I opened the door, and let Lori step out first. Unsurprisingly, Myra was right there on the other side of the door.
“Bathroom break,” I told her.
She nodded, gave the woman a hard look, then started down the hall to the bathroom. We walked that way, Myra in front, the woman behind her, and me at the rear.
“Wait here,” Myra said. She stepped into the restroom, checked the stalls, then held the door open. “Come on in.”
Lori walked in, I stayed outside.
A few minutes later, Myra and I took Lori back to the cell and traded bathroom escort jobs with Hatter and Shoe.
Ryder was waiting at my desk in the bullpen.
“Get what you wanted?” I asked him.
“Yes.”
“You going to explain it?”
Jean and Myra and Frigg pulled close.
“They’re just human,” he said. “They made a deal with a demon, not highest level—not the king—but someone much higher than a foot soldier.”
“Crossroads demon?” Myra asked.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “Those contracts are about granting someone’s wildest desires in exchange for their souls. This contract is a more like some demon hiring them to snatch Delaney. In return, they were going to be paid some money.”
“That’s…disappointingly normal,” Jean said. “What?” she asked, when we all looked at her. “If I ever made a deal with a demon, I’d expect some sis-boom-bah, you know? Not just a few bucks.”
“Were they supposed to kill me?” I asked.
“Kidnap you. Though if you were hurt in the process, that wouldn’t have voided the deal.”
“Terrific,” I said.
“You don’t know which demon they dealt with?” Myra asked.
He shook his head. “The contract that binds them is recent. They weren’t in debt with the demon beforehand, and the stakes of them failing were low. If they failed, they didn’t get the money.”
“So boring,” Jean whispered.
“Could you tell if the contract was aimed to lure in or trap the other demons in town?” I asked.
“I can’t see all of it. But they just understood they were to get you out of town. Any way they could.”
