On the Head of a Pin

By Wesa

Series: Brimstone

AU: To Tempt the Devil

Disclaimers: Brimstone characters belong to Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, Warner Brothers, and now I guess to SciFi. Cassie belongs to me. (Sorry, Luke. Well, no, I'm not really.) I'm not making any money off this. I write for my own enjoyment and for those who want to read my stories.

Category: Angst

Rating: R (M/F sexual behaviors, autoerotic behavior, Brimstonian violence)

Author's note: In the Middle Ages, theologians were so certain of the Truth of their beliefs that they were reduced to discussing such life-and-death questions as "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" Apparently they wondered neither whether these were fallen angels nor what kind of dance they were doing....

By Wesa.

It was raining. Zeke hated the way the cold water ran in rivulets down the back of his neck and into his coat, soaking the collars of his shirt and sweater and further down his back, leaving his skin cold and clammy. He wished briefly that his quarry would go into one of the dives in the neighborhood, but quickly changed his mind. This guy, one Dane Palisou, was a real piece of work. A man of nondescript appearance and indefinable accent, he melted into crowds effortlessly. He used his talent to stalk and kill prostitutes and strippers. He melted into the crowds when they tried to point him out to cops, boyfriends, or pimps, then trapped them when they tried to run, to get away.

Zeke had been on the scene when one of the girls had been found. Two seasoned cops had lost their respective breakfasts that morning, barely making it outside the crime scene before vomiting into the gutter. Even the members of the forensics team had had to make occasional trips outside, green-faced, for fresh air.

Now Palisou was looking for another victim, and Zeke had to stop him before he killed again. Inside one of the local strip clubs was the last place Zeke wanted the fugitive to go.

So naturally, that was where Palisou went.

"Be careful what you wish for, Detective," warned a familiar voice. "You might get it."

Zeke looked around, unsurprised to find his boss sauntering down the street in evening clothes, a white silk scarf draped around his neck. He carried an umbrella with a style that few could hope to imitate.

The Devil looked at Zeke with an expectant expression. "Well, Ezekiel?" he asked. "What are you waiting for? Go get him."

Zeke set his jaw and entered the strip-show bar. He was no prude - far from it - but he had learned early in his career with the NYPD that although some of the women in these places were prostitutes and some were only one step away from it, they almost never crossed that line voluntarily. True, some of the strippers did what they did because the money was good. Zeke had known more than one stripper who paid her college tuition by dancing, and others with kids to support. And that was fine, as long as it was a choice they made voluntarily. It was when a pimp got his hooks into them that they seemed to go into a long slide of depression and desperation that led to drug addiction and physical abuse, and eventually, to a small room where a fugitive from Hell celebrated their death in sordid and grisly art.

The bar was dry, at least, and fairly warm. Not warm enough, judging by the pointed nipples of the dancer nearest the door. Secretly, Zeke had always envied women that particular physical response: being too cold made them perk up as if they were excited, while it just made a man look like he had nothing to offer a woman. The dancer smiled hopefully at him - no, at the Devil, who had followed him through the door.

Zeke couldn't blame her. Lucifer certainly looked like he had more money to tip. He probably did, but would he? Zeke was surprised and suspicious when the Devil tucked a fifty into the girl's g-string, gestured to her to lean down, and said something to her. She looked disappointed and pointed toward the private booths in the back. Luke patted her on the butt and drifted slowly that direction, pausing to ogle every dancer along the way.

Zeke snorted in disbelief and went back to searching for his quarry. How can he, when he has Cassie? he wondered. He put the Devil out of his mind and concentrated on the faces of the men watching the dancers.

Zeke had always been amazed at how out-of-place he felt in places like this. He would have expected the place to be full of sleazes, like the pimps who tried to get the girls working for them, and sure enough, they were here. There were also working men for whom this was just their neighborhood bar, and middle class and white-collar types who had no other source of female nudity to look at except their own wives and girlfriends. He should have felt right at home among these men, but there was something about them that Zeke found offensive. And that was to say nothing of those who had the money to dress as well as the Devil was dressed tonight, and there were a surprising number of them in this bar. Zeke felt underdressed, and wrapped his coat more closely around himself to hide his more casual clothing.

Palisou wasn't in the main part of the bar. He must be in the back, where the Devil had gone, in one of the private viewing booths. Figures. Zeke moved toward the back of the bar, trying to ignore the group of rowdy college boys who cheered and called out suggestions to the girl dancing on their table. Y'oughta have to be over 25 to get into one of these places, Zeke thought in disgust. Or at least be able to act like you are. The poor girl on the table gave him a look of gratitude for his sympathy, and Zeke smiled understanding back at her. We all have to do things we don't want to do.

In the back, the private viewing booths were all full, with soft moans of pleasure and desire coming from most. Zeke figured the occupants of those were human men, living men, and chose one of the other booths, silently opening the curtain. Inside, the Devil sat in the chair provided, his slender, long-fingered hands wrapped around one upraised knee as he smiled in pure delight at the dancer beyond the glass. Zeke shook his head in disgust and closed the curtain.

In the next silent booth a bearded man in black clothing stood close against the glass, his right arm moving rhythmically. Almost as Zeke stealthily opened the curtain, gobs of thick white liquid splatted against the glass. Zeke had already seen too much, and he turned away, drawing the curtain closed again.

One more. The detective pulled the curtain back to find a pimp getting his piece of the action from one of his whores, taking it out in trade, completely ignoring the dancer. The prostitute on the other hand, was looking at the dancer with a kind of desperate hope in her eyes.

Damn. Palisou had to be here somewhere, but where? Zeke leaned against the wall outside the booths, chewing his lower lip and thinking hard. Could Palisou be one of the moaners? As soon as the thought occurred to him, Zeke heard it. From the booth next to the one the Devil occupied came moaning that was of a different timbre, a completely different quality. It was the sound of a terrified woman, too frightened to cry for help, too afraid to remain completely quiet.

Zeke pulled open the curtain just as the abused victim passed out, whether from terror or from loss of blood, Zeke couldn't determine from that distance and in such poor light. Palisou glared in annoyance at having his fun interrupted. It was the last thing he ever did. Zeke shot both his eyes in rapid succession, and Palisou was sucked screaming back to Hell. Zeke hissed at the pain of the tattoo in the small of his back burning away.

Beyond the glass the dancer continued to move, by now wearing nothing but a red g-string and red high-heeled shoes, drawing wispy veils across her body. She seemed perturbed neither by the sound of the gunfire and the screaming that followed nor by the glare of hellfire that she must have witnessed. Zeke looked up at her, and she smiled back at him. Her red lips moved. Thanks, Ezekiel.

"Cassie?" Zeke gasped.

As he stared, she approached the window of the next booth, her hands extended downward. By means of what must have seemed like magic to the occupants of the other booths, she pulled her husband through the unbroken glass. Zeke stared in helpless fascination as the girl he still thought of as an innocent danced for her husband, uncaring that people were watching. She moved around him, drawing his scarf from around his neck, dropping it on the floor before she slipped her hands inside his jacket. Her arms around him, Cassie raised her knee over Luke's hip, thrusting her pelvis against him in an unsubtly suggestive manner.

The Devil drew her tightly against his body, kissing her deeply as he took the lead in their obscene dance. Although he was still fully clothed, except for the scarf, Zeke didn't know how much longer that would remain the case, and he turned, wanting to get away before he saw more than he could stomach.

He bent to check on the woman on the floor. Palisou had had time to cut her very badly, and he needed to get her to a hospital, quickly. He picked her up and carried her out to the bar, shouting for someone to call an ambulance.

**********

"She got last rites?" Cassie asked him the next morning, sliding into his booth at the diner where he ate his breakfast.

He looked up at her, then quickly back down to his breakfast. "Yes," he choked.

She giggled. "Why, Zeke, I believe you're blushing! What's the matter?" she asked him innocently.

"Cassie..." He shook his head. "What the hell were you doing?"

She looked at him questioningly for a moment before abandoning the pretence. "I was seducing my husband, Ezekiel."

"He likes to watch you take off your clothes in front of other men?"

"Who did you think invented the Dance of the Seven Veils?" she wondered. "No one knows how to do it right anymore, not the way I originally did it ... Of course, being merely human, they can't. The veils were always the secret, you know. As my clothes came off, the veils of Darkness went on. Drove men crazy knowing I was naked under there where they couldn't quite see me. Eventually one of them always pulled the veils away only to find me gone, and when they looked, the veils were too. I've teased human men ever since God created them, Ezekiel, except while I was pregnant with Lindor and didn't know what or who I was. I let them look, but Sammael has always been the one I danced for." She gazed at him somberly. "I really do love him."

"How could you just watch Palisou cut the girl like that?" Zeke demanded. "Why didn't you help her?"

"Do you know how close Sammael, Israfel, and I came to being blasted out of existence for helping you with Ashur Badaktu?" Cassie retorted. "Father was pissed that we had shown ourselves in public like that." She reached across the table and touched his hand. "We aren't supposed to interfere, Zeke. You're supposed to do this yourself. It's your penance."

Zeke perked up. "My penance?" he repeated.

There was no answer. Cassie was gone.

Zeke paid for his breakfast and went to see Father Horn. He had questions to ask, and he wanted to ask them of someone who couldn't vanish the way the Devil and his wife had a habit of doing.