Why don't you come with me?" Sudakis looked happy for any excuse to get up from behind his desk. My guess was that he'd been promoted for outstanding work in the field - he probably liked the money from his administrative job but not a whole lot of other things about it. Our shoes rang on the spiral stairway that led to the roof of the cinderblock office. Steps and rail alike were cold iron, a sensible precaution in a building surrounded by such nasty magic. The trapdoor through which we climbed was also of iron, heavily greased against the rains Angels City wasn't seeing lately. Sudakis effortlessly pushed it out of the way.

"Here you are," he said waving. "You're about as safe here as you are indoors; topologically, we're still inside the same shielding system. But it doesn't feel the same out in the open air, does it?"

"No," I admitted. I felt exposed to I didn't know what. I wondered if the air itself was bad somehow. I imagined tiny demons I couldn't even see crawling down into my lungs and relieving themselves among my bronchial passages. An unpleasant thought - I scuttled it as fast as I could.

The dump still looked like a couple of acres of overgrown, underwatered ground. If it had been paved over, it would have been a perfect used carpet lot. I don't know what I'd expected from a panoramic view: maybe that I could spot boxes or barrels with corporate names on them. I didn't see anything, though. The most interesting thing I did see was a little patch of ground about fifty yards from the office building that seemed to be moving of its own accord. I pointed.

"What's over there?"

Tony Sudalds' eyes followed my finger. "Oh, that it'd be a while before decon does much with that area, I'm afraid.

Byproducts from a defense plant - I can say that much.

Those are flies you see stirring around."

"Oh." I dropped the subject, at once and completely. I'd thought about the Lord of the Flies on the way over to the dump. He's such a potent demon prince that even saying his name can be dangerous. Speak of the devil, as everyone knows, is not a joke, and the same applies to his great captain, the prince of the descending hierarchy.