The Diablo Horror (The River Book 7) by Michael Richan

his attention to his laptop and clicked at it
for a minute. Then he raised his head. “About ninety. Objects. All with
pictures and descriptions of what they do.”
    “Yeah, that’s not big,” Steven said.
    “You’ve got objects?” Elliott asked. Steven turned to look at
Roy, who was turned away, looking out the windows. He looked at Eliza, and she
stared back at him, pressing her lips together.
    “Nah,” Steven said. “But I do have some information on a
demon you might want.”
    “How did you come by this information?” Elliott asked,
returning his attention to his laptop.
    “I had a deal with him,” Steven said.
    “Oh, no,” Elliott said, looking up. “You have a deal with a
demon, and you came in here? Man, I don’t like to go anywhere near that shit.
That’s why I’m here, by the locks!”
    “I said had ,” Steven replied. “The deal is done, it’s
not active anymore. It’s history. And he was ancient, so I expect the
information I can give you would be valuable. Probably a lot more valuable than
three thousand dollars.”
    Elliott groaned and returned to his laptop. “They’re all
ancient. Which demon? Do you have a name?”
    “Do you want me to say it out loud?” Steven asked.
    “Ah, good idea,” Elliott said. “Maybe write it down?”
    Elliott handed Steven a sticky note pad and a pen. Steven
wrote “Aka Manah” on the pad and handed it back. The kid didn’t seem to
recognize the name. He went back to his laptop and typed it in.
    “I’ve got nothing on him in the database,” Elliott said, his
eyes flashing back and forth, focused on the screen. “Let me check something
else…” He rolled back to his other laptop, and began typing.
    “Oh,” he said, pushing back from the laptop. “He’s… ancient-ancient.
And scary as fuck.” Elliott grabbed the piece of paper and walked it to a small
garbage can. He removed a lighter from his pocket.
    “I’m thinking what I can share about him would be worth at
least twenty,” Steven said as he watched Elliott burn the page and drop it,
still flaming, into the garbage can. “If you can handle having that kind of
intense information in your system.”
    This caused Elliott to stop and look up at Steven. “Of course
I can handle it,” he said. “I can’t pay you, though. Just a credit.”
    “Alright,” Steven said. “Help us out with this search, and
I’ll come back and tell you the story for your database. And we’ll take a
seventeen thousand dollar credit for future searches.”
    “OK, I’ll take you at your word that you’ll come back,”
Elliott said. “And I get to put each of you into the database as contacts, too,
as part of this. Don’t ditch out on me, though, or I won’t ever help you again
and I’ll list you in the database as deadbeats.” He stopped and pushed his
glasses back up his nose. “Deal?”
    “Deal,” Steven said.
    Elliott rolled back to the other laptop and typed away. After
a few seconds he raised his head. “Well, there’s a couple of hits.”
    He hit a KVM switch and one of the large screens lit up,
showing his laptop.
    “Here’s Judith Duke,” Elliott said, rolling his mouse over
the display. “She lives in Gig Harbor.”
    “She doesn’t count!” Roy said emphatically. “I told you
that.”
    “Chill!” Elliott said. “I didn’t remember her name.”
    Roy turned to look at Steven. He was clearly nonplussed.
Steven knew Roy was thrown by all the technology, and the only way he knew to
mask his discomfort was with displays of irritation.
    “There’s two others,” Elliott said, scrolling. “A guy in
Montana, and a guy in Port Townsend.”
    “Who knows more?” Roy asked gruffly.
    “Hard to say,” Elliott replied. “Demon experts are notorious
recluses, so most of the information I have about them is from other people, kind
of like Yelp reviews. The guy in Montana seems pretty active, lots of cases.
Looks like the guy in Port Townsend is quiet. Might be retired.”
    “Can