This time, Evenson had actually remembered to repair the demonic circle he used to get home.
Otherwise, he might have had trouble finding anyone willing to share a ride back to New York with him.
With a sharp rush of magic, he returned to the basement beneath his shop.
The moment he arrived, he heard a commotion upstairs.
Several voices were talking at once.
Evenson perked up.
Business was booming today?
Maybe a foreign tour group had wandered in, eager to experience the quaint superstitions of American capitalism.
He immediately set the two large wooden cases on the floor and hurried upstairs.
If it really was a tour group, he could probably make a killing today. Foreign tourists were always good for business, and there was no reason he couldn’t add a little "international surcharge."
Then he reached the shop floor.
"Oh, shit."
There were indeed plenty of people.
Roughly a dozen.
Unfortunately, most of them were police officers.
Several men in plain clothes were arguing with Sarah near the front of the shop, while a police cordon had been erected outside.
Evenson’s good mood vanished.
He strode over and shouted, "What’s going on here? Are you trying to stop me from doing business? How are my customers supposed to get inside with all this?"
"Even if we weren’t here, you don’t seem to have many customers anyway, Mr. Richter."
A man approached as he spoke, his English carrying a distinctly British accent.
And judging by the way he addressed Evenson, he already knew him.
Evenson took a closer look.
Well, well.
An old acquaintance.
The NYPD consultant who had shared a ride with him last time, only for Evenson to conveniently forget about paying his share of the fare.
Evenson smiled.
"Who are you? I don’t think we’ve met."
It had only been a few dollars.
Surely the man hadn’t dragged half the police department here over a cab fare.
And now they were even sealing off his shop?
What did being an NYPD consultant get you these days? A license to abuse your authority?
"I expected roughly that reaction."
Holmes was dressed in a gray suit, though his shirt collar was open and he hadn’t bothered with a tie. Brown trousers completed an outfit that managed to look vaguely respectable and thoroughly disheveled at the same time.
He didn’t seem surprised by Evenson’s sudden refusal to recognize him.
"But I’m not here about the cab fare, so there’s no need to pretend you don’t know me."
Evenson frowned.
"What cab fare? What pretending? I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about."
Nice try.
Evenson had dealt with Nick Fury before. He knew better than to fall for an interrogation trick that obvious.
"See? I won, Watson."
Holmes turned toward his partner with an almost smug grin.
"His reaction was exactly what I predicted."
Watson was wearing a black trench coat and a knitted cap. Every button was fastened neatly to the top, giving her a clean, restrained appearance that couldn’t have been more different from Holmes’s disheveled style.
"I didn’t expect him to have such a thick skin..." She cleared her throat. "It seems I still have plenty to learn."
Another man approached.
He was a white man in his forties or fifties, also wearing a trench coat. He flashed his badge.
"I’m Inspector Grayson. This is Detective Bell."
He gestured toward the Black officer beside him. Bell pulled back his jacket and briefly revealed the badge secured at his waist.
Grayson continued, "We’re here because of an investigation. It has nothing to do with any other matter. We’d appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Richter."
"An investigation?"
Evenson looked genuinely puzzled.
He walked behind the counter, dropped into his chair, and casually propped his feet up.
"What kind of investigation could possibly involve my shop? I’m a law-abiding citizen. I pay my taxes on time."
As far as Evenson was concerned, that covered most of the important requirements for being a respectable American.
"We’re looking for a suspect who disappeared in this area," Grayson said.
"A suspect? Who?"
"Hakon, leader of the Marana Triangle Gang."
Grayson fixed Evenson with a serious stare.
"He’s an extremely dangerous criminal wanted for multiple serious offenses, including murder. That’s why we need your cooperation."
Grayson had deliberately given Evenson the suspect’s full background.
He wanted him to understand exactly how dangerous Hakon was and why the investigation mattered.
Unfortunately, there was a problem.
The search warrant had been submitted to the district attorney’s office, but it still hadn’t been approved.
Without Evenson’s consent, the police had no legal authority to search the little shop.
"Marana Triangle Gang?"
Evenson thought for a moment.
"You mean those street punks with all the ridiculous tattoos on their faces?"
"That’s them."
Grayson nodded.
"What does that have to do with me? I’ve never even met Hakon."
That part was true.
Evenson had never had much respect for small-time street criminals.
"Last night, there was a gang war," Grayson explained.
"The Marana Triangle Gang got into a firefight with several other gangs at once. Their people were scattered, and Hakon fled here."
Holmes took over.
He looked at Evenson with an expression that was far too amused.
"According to witnesses, he climbed through a window into your shop."
Holmes paused.
"He never came back out."
Evenson stared at him.
The man had apparently found a perfectly good road to heaven and decided to climb through a window into hell instead.
He silently mourned Hakon’s fate for approximately half a second.
Then he glanced toward his people.
Dooman, who had been standing quietly in the corner, reached down and rubbed his impressively round belly.
Evenson understood.
Hakon was no longer among the living.
Which meant there was no point pretending otherwise.
Instead, Evenson decided to have a little fun at the police’s expense.
"You people are something else. You take taxpayers’ money, then don’t even do your jobs properly."
He gestured toward the street.
"The gangs have been shooting at each other nonstop for days. Look at what New York has become. And where were you while all that was happening? Sitting at home because you were too scared to intervene."
He leaned back in his chair.
"But now you have the nerve to harass a perfectly legal business."
He shook his head.
"Cowards."
"Cowards?"
Grayson’s face darkened instantly.
He pulled back his trench coat, revealing a medal pinned beneath it.
Evenson’s eyes narrowed.
"Oh."
He recognized it.
"First-Class Defender Medal."
It was different from the usual decorations. The medal had only recently been created, specifically for police officers who had fought bravely during the Battle of New York.
"Under the command of the fearless General Ross, I fought those damned Chitauri in the streets of New York."
There was genuine reverence in Grayson’s voice when he mentioned Ross.
Then his expression hardened.
"I wasn’t afraid of those alien bastards. You think I’m afraid of a bunch of gang trash?"
Grayson was suffering from the sort of frustration that only came from being blamed for problems you couldn’t solve.
Whenever something went wrong, people blamed the police.
But nobody seemed to understand what policing had become.
Every major case attracted the FBI, who would inevitably stick their noses into the investigation and walk away with all the important leads.
How was the NYPD supposed to solve anything quickly under those circumstances?
And it wasn’t as though they had ignored the gang wars.
The problem was that the gangs were armed to the teeth.
Assault rifles.
Grenade launchers.
Sometimes even heavy machine guns.
Some of these gangs had more firepower than SWAT.
What exactly were ordinary police officers supposed to do about that?
"You know why the gangs have suddenly gone completely out of control, don’t you?"
Holmes suddenly turned the question back on Evenson.
"How would I know?"
Evenson genuinely hadn’t understood why the gangs had been running around like lunatics lately.
Holmes gave him a strange look.
"About a month and a half ago, General Caiba of the Golden Triangle suddenly died."
"The entire Golden Triangle descended into chaos almost overnight. The gangs that relied on it for their supply couldn’t get anything anymore."
"At roughly the same time, the South American drug lord known as the Three-Eyed Drug Emperor appears to have suffered a serious setback. His supply to several American states was cut off as well."
"One of our informants claims the missing drugs were purchased by a single major buyer. But none of them have appeared on the streets."
Evenson slowly blinked.
"So..."
He stared at Holmes.
"The gangs in New York are all running low on product."
"And they’re fighting each other because they’re trying to take whatever the others have left?"
Holmes nodded.
Evenson sat there for several seconds.
Then everything clicked.
That was the source of New York’s sudden descent into chaos.
And Evenson finally realized something else.
Being a high-ranking demon lord apparently came with an unexpected passive ability.
He couldn’t help but grin.
Talk about a built-in Aura of Chaos.
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