"Thaaaat's it. Keep walking. That's a good little cheater." Phineas' voice was heard by no one as he sat in the beat up old Lincoln, watching a businessman stroll along his routine trip to a seedy love-hotel. Phineas had watched him enter and exit numerous times over the weeks of his contract, but he'd been doing this job long enough to know how much evidence would be necessary to make the case stick.
Today would be his last day of surveillance though, sitting on the memory stick for his camera was a high quality shot of money changing hands between this poor shlub and a high-class call girl, more than enough to give his wife bargaining rights in the divorce, anything else was just icing. As the man disappeared from sight Phinny flicked through his photos again, picturing the fat bonus cheque he'd been promised for making this case stick before admiring himself in the rearview mirror.
Looking back at him were piercing emerald eyes shaded by the brim of a fedora, hiding his short cropped blonde hair. The only indicator of his every day nature was the gaudy pentagram hanging from his neck under his trench coat. Otherwise, he was just another foreigner in a town full of them. Flashing himself a winning smile, he pointed at the love hotel with his thumb and index finger extended, like a kid playing cops and robbers. Dropping the 'hammer' he intoned to the silent interior of his vehicle "Bang!"
An hour later he was back in his home, a comfortable little house on the edge of town, that looked perfectly normal on the outside. Opening the door he yelled out
"Mephisto, Come to me!" dramatically as the black cat that he shared his space with greeted him, chirping and mewling happily.
Hanging his hat and coat he checked the sigils and talismans placed over his entry-way, various herbal rubs mixed into a dye and used to carve runes from seven different dead languages formed the basis of a 'protective spell' on every entry point in to the house. Of course, none of the symbols and herbs meant anything, they were simple foci for his magic, the real power lay in the expenditure of Prana that gave his wards meaning.
Stopping at a shrine on his dresser he admired the carved skull and made an offering to the voodoo god of death, 'Baron Samedi', tossing back a shot of rum before plugging his camera in to his computer and setting the photos to upload to his backup server. Scratching the cat above the ear he cooed, in a voice that was almost a perfect imitation of a woman's
"Soon we're going to have another room-mate, yes we are, Mephistopheles. I wonder who they'll be?"
Tossing on one of his favorite Jazz albums he swayed around the ritual circle, triple checking it, making sure every detail was perfect.
