The Demon Detective

The Trap That Walks

Penn’s trail led to the old city zoo. It was closed down, a place of rusty cages and empty animal pits. A perfect place for a monster to play.

Angel moved through the overgrown paths. The moon was full, making long, black shadows.

“Over here, father!” Penn’s voice called, cheerful.

He was in the big cat enclosure. He stood in the center where the lions used to be. In his hand, he held a man by the scruff of his neck. The man was well-dressed, now dirty and terrified. Angel recognized him from Wolfram & Hart’s website. Another lawyer.

“I found this one skulking around,” Penn said. “He was sent to find me. To ‘negotiate.’ They never learn.” He shook the lawyer gently. “I thought we could have a lesson. A test.”

“Let him go, Penn,” Angel said, stepping into the enclosure.

“But the test has already started,” Penn said. “See, this man, Mr. Barlow, has information. Wolfram & Hart is moving something big into the city tomorrow. Something worse than marked vampires. He was going to tell me where, in exchange for his life.” Penn leaned close to the lawyer’s ear. “But I don’t make deals with food. So… I’ll give you a choice, Angel. You can have the information. Or you can have his life.”

“What?” Angel said, confused.

“If you want to stop the bigger evil, you need the information. To get it, I have to rip it from his mind. My way. It will be… messy. He probably won’t survive.” Penn’s smile was bright. “Or, you can be the hero. You can save his life right now. Fight me, take him, get him out safe. But then the big bad thing happens tomorrow, and who knows how many die?” He tilted his head. “The helpless, or the many? Which do you choose?”

Angel froze. This was the trap. Not a trap of claws and teeth, but a trap of choice. Penn was trying to prove that goodness had limits. That to do good, you sometimes had to be evil.

The lawyer, Barlow, whimpered. “Please… don’t let him…”

“Time’s ticking,” Penn sang.

Angel’s mind raced. There had to be another way. There was always another way.

“You think you’re showing me something new?” Angel said, his voice cutting through the night. “I’ve lived with harder choices than this for a hundred years. You’re not a philosopher, Penn. You’re just a bully who likes to hear himself talk.”

Angel didn’t move to attack. He didn’t move to save the lawyer. He reached into his coat and threw a small, metal object into the dry dirt at Penn’s feet.

It was a silver emergency whistle. The kind that makes a sound only dogs—and vampires—can hear.

Penn laughed. “What is this? Call for help?”

“No,” Angel said. “Call for witnesses.”

From the shadows of the broken zoo buildings, figures stepped out. Gunn, from the old monkey house. Wesley, from the reptile building. And from the main gate, Detective Kate Lockley, her gun drawn, with four uniformed cops behind her.

Penn’s smile finally faded. He looked at the cops, at the humans. “You brought the law? How… ordinary.”

“You’re holding a man hostage,” Lockley shouted. “Put him down. Now.”

“This is my game!” Penn snarled, his cool mask cracking.

“The game is over,” Angel said. “You wanted to see if my way works? It works because I don’t work alone. You’re alone. You always have been.”

For the first time, anger flashed in Penn’s blue eyes. Pure, deep anger. He wasn’t being out-fought. He was being out-thought. He shoved the lawyer, Barlow, away. The man stumbled and ran toward the cops.

“Fine!” Penn spat. “You want the information so badly? It’s at the docks! Warehouse 42! Tomorrow night! They’re bringing in a heart! A living demon heart that can power a hundred marks! Go stop it! Be the hero!”

He turned to run, a blur of motion toward the high fence.

“Stop him!” Lockley yelled.

The cops fired. Bullets hit the fence around Penn. He was too fast. He leaped, clearing the twenty-foot fence easily.

But Angel was ready. He had predicted the escape route. As Penn landed on the other side, Angel was there, having run around the enclosure.

He slammed into Penn, and they crashed through the door of an old zoo cafeteria. They rolled across dirty tiles, smashing tables and chairs.

“You ruin everything!” Penn roared, his face shifting into his true, monstrous visage—bumpy forehead, yellow eyes, fangs. He was done playing.

They fought without rules now. It was brutal. Penn was stronger, fueled by rage. He picked Angel up and threw him through a serving window. Glass exploded.

Angel got up, splinters in his skin. He grabbed a heavy metal tray and swung it like a bat. It hit Penn’s head with a dull clang. Penn staggered.

Outside, they could hear Lockley shouting, ordering her men to surround the building.

“They’ll never take me alive,” Penn laughed, black blood on his lips. “And you can’t kill me. You’re not capable.”

“You’re wrong,” Angel said, breathing hard. He reached behind a broken counter. His hand closed around what he had hidden there earlier: a heavy, sharp metal pole. A piece of the old zoo’s flagpole.

Penn charged. Angel didn’t try to dodge. He braced himself. He let Penn come.

Penn’s claws dug into Angel’s shoulders. His fangs went for Angel’s throat.

Angel drove the metal pole upward, with all his strength, not at Penn’s heart, but up under his rib cage, in a brutal, final move.

Penn stopped. He looked down at the metal sticking out of his chest. He didn’t dust. The mark he bore, the scarred symbol, had changed him. He was harder to kill.

He looked into Angel’s eyes. The anger was gone. The curiosity was back. “Does it hurt?” he whispered, his voice gurgling. “To kill your own?”

“Yes,” Angel said, his face a mask of pain and resolve.

A faint, sad smile touched Penn’s lips. “Good.” Then his body shuddered. The blue light in his eyes went out. He dissolved, not into dust, but into a pool of dark, oily liquid that seeped into the dirty floor. Gone.

Angel stood alone in the wrecked room, the metal pole in his hand. He heard footsteps. Lockley appeared in the broken doorway, her gun aimed. She saw the pool of black oil, the pole, Angel’s battered form.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“Gone,” Angel said, dropping the pole. It clattered on the tile.

Lockley looked at him for a long time. She lowered her gun. She didn’t ask for details. “The lawyer, Barlow, is talking. He’s terrified. Says something about a demon heart at the docks tomorrow. Warehouse 42.”

Angel nodded. “Then that’s where we go next.”

Lockley almost smiled. It was just a twitch. “We?”

Angel looked at her. “You said you might need me again.”

She nodded. “Clean up. I’ll call you with the details.” She turned and left, calling her officers away.

Gunn and Wesley came in. They saw the aftermath. They saw the look on Angel’s face.

“You okay?” Gunn asked.

“No,” Angel said honestly. Killing Penn didn’t feel like victory. It felt like paying a bill he never wanted to owe. But it was done. His oldest debt was paid.

“The heart,” Wesley said. “A living demon heart. If Wolfram & Hart gets it, they could start their marking program again. Bigger.”

Angel took a deep, ragged breath. The fight was never over. One monster died, but a bigger one was coming. “Then we get there first.”

He walked out of the broken zoo, his team behind him. The night was still dark. But he wasn’t walking into it alone. He had his friends. He had an uneasy ally in the police. And he had a job to do.

Tomorrow, the docks. Tonight, he just had to keep moving. One step at a time. That was the only way.