“Like me finding what I expected to find.”
“Which is?”
Scarrey grinned and spread his arms, gesturing at the walls, the boxes, the light.
“A warehouse,” he said.
“Yeah,” Mason said. “Well, glad we got that solved. What’s next?”
“Lunch, I’d expect. Would you like some lunch? I’ll pay.”
IT WASN’T THE SORT OF RESTAURANT MASON USUALLY WENT FOR. GIVEN his options, he usually went for a good local Mexic
an place or else a steakhouse. If it looked like the kind of place where he might have to wait for a table, he’d discount it out of hand. When they walked through the glassand-chrome doors, Mason expected the woman at the maitre d’ station to ask if they’d like a reservation for next month, but instead, she’d shown them back to a little cream-colored alcove with an art deco halogen lamp suspended from wires above the table. So maybe Scarrey knew something.
“What’s good here?” Mason asked, looking over the menu. Fourteendollar BL T. Forty-dollar lamb shank.
“I usually get the salad with feta on the side,” Scarrey said.
“Right,” Mason said.
“There’s a coffee-crusted steak that’s good too. You could try that.”
Mason tried to figure out if the guy was joking, and almost decided he wasn’t. And if he was, it would serve him right for making the offer.
“All right. I’ll give it a shot.”
Scarrey waved the waiter over, and they ordered. Their drinks arrived before they’d finished. Scarrey got a European lager. Mason stuck to iced tea, and for iced tea, it wasn’t bad.
“So,” Mason said. “You believe all this stuff. Beleth, King of Hell. Demonic conspiracies. Like that?”
“Absolutely, I do,” Scarrey said. “I’ve seen it. I take it you don’t believe it?”
“I’ve seen a lot of things,” Mason said. “I’m just the cop, though. You want judgment, you want a judge.”
“I’m not sure being on the bench necessarily gives someone a deeper spiritual insight.”
“Amen,” Mason said, and Scarrey caught the joke immediately that time. The maitre d’ looked over at the sound of his laughter, smiled, and turned away.
“I didn’t always believe it,” Scarrey said. “But I hoped. I always hoped.”
“Hoped? That there was a global satanic conspiracy controlling the government and the police so it can sacrifice babies and worship the devil?”
“Well, not when you put it that way. But I hoped that there was a world more magical than my physical, obvious, mundane life. I was like that when I was young. Always looking for something miraculous. A visitation from God. Or a UFO abduction. I wanted to be a vampire all through middle school. Used to stand by my window every night and invite any vampires who happened to be around to come in. They can’t come in unless you invite them, you know. I was a bit ahead of the times on that. I wasn’t picky, though. I just wanted something to turn the world on its head.”
“Sounds like you needed a girlfriend,” Mason said.
“Oh, I did,” Scarrey said. “No, I stumbled into riders because I hoped to.”
“Riders?”
“It’s what people in the trade call them. The things that live just outside the world, trying to get in.”
“Why not just demons?”
Scarrey took a long drink of his lager, his frown drawing lines in his forehead. He smacked his lips.
“What’s the difference between an angel and a demon?” he asked.