The Demon King by Heather Killough-Walden

in
Astaroth’s side for millennia. Now despite your father’s best
efforts, his enemy has learned of your existence. I suspect your
becoming one of the Thirteen Kings had something to do with that.
Regardless, he knows who and what you are, and he will do anything
to destroy your father. Destroying you would be a very good start. Be
on your guard. I will be waiting should you have any questions,
Detective. You need but call my name.”
    With that, the man who
claimed to be a messenger in a demon king’s court stepped back –
and vanished. He didn’t sink into the shadows as a vampire or
unseelie or warlock would. He didn’t transport away in a swirling,
color-melting portal. One second he was there, and the next he
wasn’t. Poof .
    Laz blinked and took a slow, deep breath.
Then he looked down at the card. It was an address to a place in
Boston. He flipped the card over. There were no names and no
decorations. There was nothing else but the address, typed in
simple Times New Roman.
    So why was it that when he looked at it, his
gut tightened and his insides felt funny?
    The words the disappearing man had just
spoken to him swam like lightning fish in Laz’s head. His guts felt
heavy and his ears were ringing; his cop instinct was telling him
something loud and clear, and what it was saying made no sense. It
was telling him that everything that had just happened was real.
And that everything the man had said was true.
    “ Very well,” he muttered
with an outward calm he didn’t inwardly feel. He would go to the
address on the card. A bizarre lead was better than no lead at
all.
    *****
    Boston was set up on very old streets.
Nothing was symmetrical, because the roads had been carved by
horses and their carriages in the late eighteenth century. You had
to wind to and fro and dodge inordinate amounts of angry traffic to
get where you needed to go – but if you’d grown up in and around
Boston, this was par for the usual course, and not as much a source
of high blood pressure as it was for tourists.
    Lazarus’s car was unmarked,
so it fortunately did nothing to slow traffic as he made his way
through Cambridge and Back Bay, passed the Public Gardens of
Boston, and headed into Boston’s tiniest neighborhood, the
historical Bay Village. Siri had been directing him on his iPhone,
which he’d erected on his dashboard. But when he realized this was where the
address on the card was taking him, his curiosity, already piqued,
went ahead and stood at attention.
    Bay Village had become one of the most
expensive areas of Boston, filled with houses built in the early
1800’s, and unchanged by time due to strict historical regulations.
Because it was tiny, it was fought-over and sought-after, and what
had once been a lower to middle-class population had eventually
become a middle to upper middle-class one.
    He knew there wouldn’t be any available
parking, especially if the address was one of the famous row houses
of the neighborhood. So he readied himself to prop the police light
on top of his Buick just in case and wound his way through the last
few streets Siri directed him down. It was only a little irritating
that he was ending up within walking distance, less than a half a
mile away, from where he’d been that morning at the John
Hancock.
    A few minutes later, he was
standing outside the small redbrick house that matched the address
on the card. It had a redbrick fence and a single front lot tree,
and he was shaking his head. He was pretty sure this particular
house was actually registered with the historical society it was so
old. It was well cared for though. The white paint on the shutters
was fresh, the windows were spotless, the house wasn’t leaning in
any particular direction, and none of the steps leading up to the
tiny porch were bowed or warped or splintered. Effort had been put
into maintaining the home’s 19 th century feel while adding a
touch of modern amenity.
    He had no idea what to expect as far as