A long steel table ran down the middle of the lab, creating a workspace and leaving a narrow walkway around it. I hadn’t replaced the summoning circle at the far end yet. I had enough trouble in my life without deliberately calling up more.
And on one of the shelves, surrounded by paperback books, was an old, bleach-white human skull.
“Bob,” I called. “Hey, Bob. Come and sit, buddy. We need to talk.”
Within a second a blue light that seemed to almost radiate out of the freshly painted cinder-block walls darted around the circumference of the room and into the skull on the shelf.
Within a second or two, orange lights kindled to life within the skull’s eye sockets, glowing like little candleflames, and the thing shuddered on the shelf, teeth clicking, before the skull pivoted very slightly in place and faced my stool next to the worktable.
“Hoo boy! Running this place is like driving a monster truck, Harry!”
The castle, itself a massive magical construct designed and built in bygone days by some hoary old wizard long since dead, required a spiritual conductor to ensure its various defenses and features functioned properly. Bob was more than up to the task, and I suspected that he took secret delight in his new monster truck.
“You wanna watch Star Wars again, boss?” Bob burbled.
“Later. Right now, I need a sounding board, buddy,” I said.
“Just like the old days!” Bob burbled. “Hit me!”
I yawned, took another sip of coffee, and told him all about Maya and Tripp Gregory.
“First things first, Harry,” Bob said seriously. “Is there any chance whatsoever the hot schoolteacher is gonna get naked during this?”
I rubbed at an eyebrow. “Let’s assume that isn’t relevant to the case.”
“I don’t see how that could be true,” Bob said with certainty. “But I’ll factor it in as a given if you like.”
“Please,” I said.
“Recalculating,” Bob said, with an odd emphasis that he had once assured me was a hilarious reference. “Where do you want to start?”
“With Tripp Gregory,” I said.
“I assume you already got his record?”
“Sure,” I said. “Got the public stuff myself and called Rawlins for the rest.”
“Rawlins didn’t retire?”
“Decided to put it off after the Last Titan hit us,” I said. “Tripp Gregory’s record looks like what I saw: He’s a pimp and a small time drug dealer. Cocaine mostly, maybe uses his own stuff. He’s got no record of violence, but CPD thinks he’s been adjacent to a few too many girls who have gone missing.”
“Uh huh. You think he whacked them?”
“I think he’s a snake,” I said. “He’d do it, or have it done, if it was in his best interests and he didn’t think he’d get caught. My gut says it’s more likely he’d sell them.”
“Kill him?” Bob suggested.
“Bob,” I said chidingly.
“Fine,” the skull sighed. “Mostly kill him. Open a Way to somewhere he’ll get a thematically appropriate end, toss him in, close it, and go have a beer.”
Tempting in its simplicity. But I’d seen too much killing lately. “I’ve hit my quota for the year,” I told Bob. “That’s off the table.”
“So why don’t you just stick him in a cell on Demonreach and have done?” Bob asked. “He doesn’t die, he can’t hurt anybody, and you can pick any kind of punishment you want.”