Read Online The Diabolist (Dominic Grey 3) by Layton Green - Free Book Online Page A

composed himself, then spoke in the gruffest voice he could muster. “I just had some visitors.”

T he taxi dropped Grey and Viktor in Pacific Heights, on the street outside the home of the next witness, John Sebastian Reynolds III, Esquire. A foghorn moaned, and lights from the Marina District twinkled below.
    Grey shoved his hands in his pockets, the air thin and cool, seeping through his ripped coat. “Oak’s a liar, though not sure I make him for a murderer. Doesn’t have the nerve. I could see him paying someone else, but that’s about it. And that still doesn’t explain what happened.”
    “No,” Viktor said.
    “What’s your theory?”
    Viktor paused on the sidewalk, oblivious to the chill. “I believe there’s a power struggle happening, and Matthias and Xavier were on the wrong side. I’m just not sure who’s behind it or why. Given the involvement of both the House and L’église de la Bête, it would seem that someone’s trying to win the hearts and minds of Satanists.”
    “What a prize.”
    They approached the house, a fancy Georgian with a lamp-lit walkway. Grey pressed the doorbell twice before a dead bolt clicked. The door opened a few inches, stopped by a chain.
    A man’s ruddy, clean-shaven face appeared in the crack. Grey thought him to be in his forties, once handsome, now saddled by the mushy skin and bulging veins of an alcoholic.
    His voice was slurred but under control. “Do I know you?”
    Viktor produced his identification. “John Sebastian? We’re investigating the death of Matthias Gregory. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
    He looked at the ID and then up at Viktor. “Interpol?”
    “We’re assigned to local police,” Viktor said, handing him a card.
    John released a deep, resigned sigh, then unhooked the chain. “Come in. Anything I can get you officers, or detectives, or I suppose you call yourself agents?”
    Grey and Viktor exchanged a look. A far cry, Grey thought, from the greeting they had received from Oak and his hellhound.
    John led them into a study filled with creamy leather furniture. A bay window overlooked the city. Both Grey and Viktor refused his offer of a drink, and he refilled the tumbler in his hand with a generous pour of Scotch, his trim haircut and tidy fingernails marking him as a professional even without the esquire.
    “What can I tell you?”
    “Have you spoken to the police?” Viktor said.
    “I gave a written statement at the scene, but no one’s contacted me about it. I’m no criminal attorney, but any fool can see the murder of the city’s leading Satanist is not exactly public priority
numero uno
.”
    “Why don’t you take us through your version of events?” Grey said.
    “Sure. It was my third ceremony.
Third
. And this madness happens. I don’t know how much you know about the House, but we don’t actually worship Lucifer, Beelzebub, Satan”—he waved his glass at them—“whatever you want to call that archaic nonsense. The House is antireligion, a protest against the creationists and jihadists of the world. Hell, I’m not even political, I just have too much time at night on my hands since my divorce.” He eyed one of the bookshelves, filled with the gold-lettered spines of legal volumes. “My professors were right, you know, all those years ago. The law is a terrible mistress. She steals all your time and leeches the fun out of life, leaves you sterile and analytical. I suppose when I joined the House I was trying to rekindle an intellectual passion of some sort, any kind of passion.” He directeda sardonic chuckle at his glass. “I guess I chose poorly. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. On to Zen Buddhism.”
    “The ceremony?” Viktor said.
    “I was pretty intoxicated that night, so I’ll never make a decent witness in court if that’s what you’re after. Then again, I’m intoxicated most nights, and I hold it together fairly well. That’s to say, I know what I saw.”
    As if to prove his