“I bet you’ve never seen any Sub Rosa porn either. You’re out of your depth, choirboy. In the books, autophagia is a mental disorder, but Springheel made it into a fetish. He got off on eating himself.”
Wells is giving me his disapproving squint, but he’s listening. His team edges in closer, not even pretending to work anymore.
“Santa Muerte is death and protection all rolled into one. A gangster Kali. She’d tighten Springheel’s jeans.”
“Watch your language.”
“Fuck you. You brought me in. I’ll do this my way.”
Pause.
“Keep going.”
“The altar is a dark-magic sex shop. All you need is Lucifer’s cock ring to have the party of the century. I only mention that because that’s what Springheel wanted to do. Party very hard.”
I walk over and stand in the hexagon, trying to step around the sticky bits.
“The hexagon with blood and bone calls dark power. Yojimbe mixes in sexual energy, but that’s not a big surprise considering all the speed and poppers on the altar. Well, maybe for you. Look at this one side of the hexagon. There’s maybe a half-inch gap where the edges don’t touch. If this is a protection configuration, it won’t work. Whatever Enoch calls will be able to slip in through that hole. That’s stupid and it’s sloppy. Unless it’s deliberate.”
“What did Springheel invoke and why did he let it in?”
I step forward to the broken edge of the hexagon.
“He would have been here, near the opening. He’s thrown yojimbe around. He’s probably been snorting meth and doing his poppers. He starts his spell and he calls up a demon.”
“What kind of demon?”
I hold up one of the still-smoking bones with my fingertips and point to the broken edge.
“An eater. Five hundred years ago, an eater was what you called when you wanted it to look like locusts chewed up on your neighbor’s crops or wolves killed their cattle. Enoch wanted something more up close and personal. That’s why there’s a break in the hexagon. Springheel built himself a cosmic glory hole. He was a Bone Daddy.”
Wells is frowning. He really wants me to shut up. I keep going.
“He’s got a hard-on for demons. For eaters. Springheel wanted to stick as much of himself as he could get through that glory hole and get it nibbled on by a primordial retard with ten rows of shark teeth. Only something went wrong.”
“What?”
“Damned if I know. Let your techs figure it out. Springheel called an eater because that’s how he got off. But he fucked up. Broke the circle too wide or made some stupid stoner mistake to completely break the hexagon’s protection and got himself eaten.”
“You’re sure about this sick shit?”
>“Evening, ma’am, I’m collecting for UNICEF.”
“Stark, right? Get in here. Marshal Wells is waiting.”
“And you are?”
“No one you need to know.”
She lets me inside. The interior of the place is as rotten and decayed as the outside. She leads me into the kitchen.
“Nice. Defensiveness and moral superiority in two-point-four seconds. A new land speed record.”
“Marshal Wells said you liked to talk.”
“I’m a people person.”
“Is that before or after you cut people’s heads off?”