"So this is it?"  Detective Shadowvalt emerged from the darkness at the edge of the room, trailing brimstone and cigarette smoke.  He paused at the pentagram, ran a claw through the ash that formed a six-limbed silhouette across rune-dappled floorboards.

"Uhuh."  Thomas loosened the collar of his robes, staring up at the detective with bloodshot eyes.  "He burst into flames just as we were sealing the pact.  Gone in seconds."

"You haven't left the room since then?"

The human shook his head, tried to kick away the cat wrapping itself around his feet.  A classic familiar.

"Your, uh, colleagues wouldn't let me."  He pointed towards the doorway where Griddlenotch and Festum stood, grinning and sharpening their horns.

Shadowvalt nodded.  "Fast as light, those boys, and they can taste murder on the wind."

"M-m-murder?"

"This lighter yours?"

It was a chunky zippo, the dragon's head engraving coloured by an imitation ruby eye.

"Just for the candles."  Thomas was trembling now, staring at the charred heap on his floor. "I wouldn't . . ."

"Couldn't, more like."  Shadowvalt flipped the zippo into life, sparked up a cigarette.  "Duke Excelsior was immune to mortal fire."

He took a deep drag, flicked grey ash at the cat.  She scampered away.

"Anyone else here?"

Thomas frantically shook his head.

"I warded the room.  No-one else could get in or out."

Shadowvalt strolled across the creaking boards, eyeing the pentagram from every angle.  He smoked his cigarette right down to the filter before grinding it out under a hoof.  Then he pulled a notepad from his trenchcoat pocket, licked the end of a needle-sharp pencil.

"No-one in or out, huh?"

His arm shot out, launching the pencil into the shadows behind him.  There was a wet thud and a pained yelp.

"Go on," Shadowvalt said.  "Resist arrest."

A thing like a five-foot green anemone emerged, tentacles raised, puss seeping around the pencil embedded in its forehead.

"Knucklerug."  Shadowvalt"s voice was loaded with weary intolerance. "What are you doing here, you wretch?"

"Watching," it gurgled.  "Waiting for what's mine."

Long eyestalks dipped towards Thomas.  Drool leaked from one of the creature's mouths.

"Tempting," it said.  "Planting ideas.  Nurturing the precious seed.  The darkening soul.  The feast."

Thomas's expression, trapped between appalled and fascinated, was the funniest thing Shadowvalt had seen all day.  He allowed himself a small, superior smirk.

"This yours then?" he asked.

"N-no!"  Thomas said.  "I've never seen it before!"

"Yes," Knucklerug might have sighed, might have belched.  It was hard to tell. "Been working him for months.  Almost ready.  Going to appear next week, offer phenomenal mystic power for soul."

"You don't have phenomenal power," Shadowvalt said.  "Mediocre, maybe. Passable at a push."

"So?"  This noise was definitely a laugh.  "Think pinkling can tell that?"

A cluster of tentacles reached out to caress Thomas, who jerked back in alarm.

"You must have been pretty pissed off when Duke Excelsior showed up in the pentagram."  Shadowvalt grabbed a fistful of Knucklerug's gelatinous protuberances, pulled the trembling creature close.  "Better demons than you have murdered to protect a nascent pact."

"Not me, not me!"  Knucklerug squealed.  "Didn't know duke was coming. Couldn't prepare.  Too weak to kill him with my bare mind.  Mediocre power, remember.  Passable at a push."

"You're right."  Shadowvalt flung the creature away, flicked ectoplasm from his claws.  "And let's be honest, you didn't even have first dibs.

"Griddlenotch?"

The watch-demon looked up from petting the cat, which was making its casual way out the door.

"Sir?"

"Bring that thing over here."

The cat made to dash away, but Griddlenotch had her by the scruff of the neck.  The familiar screeched and scratched, then screeched again as gobs of black, acidic blood spattered from Griddlenotch's wounds.

The watch-demon laughed and passed his prisoner to Shadowvalt, who held her up by the throat.

"People forget that a familiar's more than just a tool."  The detective lit a cigarette with his spare hand.  "It's a being in its own right, and one that grows more powerful the longer you use it.  It boosts your power, but it saves a fraction for itself, and even if your power never grows beyond a feeble sputter, that fraction keeps growing.

"People also forget that a cat familiar's still a cat, faintly cunning and utterly self-centered.  Kitty here saw her master currying favour from grander forces, sensed Knucklerug getting ready to move in, thought she was going to be replaced by a more mystic model.  She had time to prepare for you, Knucklerug.  But before you could show yourself Excelsior walked into the trap.  Boom.  Dead duke.

"Isn"t that right . . ." Shadowvalt peered at the cat's collar, ". . . Miss Trixy Bell?"

The cat hissed, staring venomously at Thomas.

"Hell knows no fury like a woman scorned."  Shadowvalt held her out towards Griddlenotch.  "Okay boys, take her away."