The demon was back on its feet before I realized I was even in trouble. Those disgusting tentacles wrapped around my arms. I fought to pull myself free, but I was too weak from the venom. Its grip was like iron.
But before the vile thing could drag me to its disgusting mouth, a long-haired White dude in a black trench coat and a wizard staff strode into the room and started shouting things I couldn’t understand.
The demon suddenly went stiff. It tentacles released me. I staggered back, falling on the bed.
The creature was bathed in sparkly, blue light that seemed to be emanating from the newcomer’s staff. He continued to chant in tongues as my brain struggled to make sense of what was happening.
I decided I wasn’t wasting the opportunity this guy had bought me. Whatever was going on here, I was ending this piece-of-shit, Hell denizen. I surged off the couch with my sword pointed towards the giant fucker.
“No, you’ll break the circle!” Mr. Trench Coat shouted.
I had no idea what he meant, and I sure as shit didn’t care. As I put a foot just in front of the demon, there was an explosion of red and pink sparkles, and magic gushed into my body. I drove my sword into the creature’s chest, hoping that’s where its heart was. As soon as the blade was an inch deep in monster flesh, I redirected the magic into another destructive death-blast.
In a flash of blue light, the demon exploded in sorcery and gore. As though they’d been set on fire, the chunks of flesh and the carcass burned and fizzled.
Then the whole thing was gone, leaving behind nothing but scorch marks on the carpet and wallpaper.
“How . . .” Mr. Trench Coat said, “how did you do that?”
“I’m a badass,” I replied.
Then I sank to my knees. I struggled to breathe, and I could barely feel my fingers and toes.
“You’ve been poisoned,” Mr. Trench Coat said. “Let me help you.”
“Okay,” I managed, sounding like my mouth was three feet away from the rest of me.
The newcomer lifted me to my feet, and I staggered to the bed. The room seemed to spin.
“I’ve got an antivenin,” he said. “Hold tight.”
I was barely aware of his ministrations. I lay back on the bed as the dirty room went in and out of focus. I smelled something weird – an odd combination of poo and flowers – but I had no idea what it was or what he was doing.
All I could think about was resting. Or maybe even just giving up altogether. I’d tried, hadn’t I? I’d slain a dragon and a vampire, and it just hadn’t worked out. I’d gone to college for a semester, and that was no good either. I was Sassy Kincaide, Fuckup Extraordinaire. I hurt everyone around me, especially the woman I allegedly loved. So maybe it would just be best if I gave in – shut my eyes and let go.
“This will sting,” Mr. Trench Coat said.
Fire erupted in my neck as he plucked the demon’s quills out one by one. I whimpered with each extraction. Tears ran down my face. I wanted to be embarrassed, but it was so hard to give enough of a damn.
“There,” he soothed. “That’s the last one.”
A moment later, he was smearing a cool paste over my tortured flesh. Microscopic fingers seemed to pry inside the wounds, stretching out inside my blood vessels. It didn’t hurt, but it was damned intrusive.
“Good,” Mr. Trench Coat said. “Now rest. The salve will neutralize the toxin. You just rest.”
I did what he told me. I had no power to choose anything else.
The world receded. After a few seconds, only the bed and I remained. There was nothing but darkness around me. The bed seemed to float, drifting on a tide, as though I were on a lumpy raft with smelly sheets.
A bright light ignited overhead. It shone down directly on me, bathing me with hot, white illumination.
And then my God-damned father materialized next to the bed. Jesus, I was sick of seeing him. He wasn’t around when I was alive. Now that he was dead, he wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone.
“Cecily,” he said, as he bent over me, like a priest administering last rites, “you can’t stay here. You must leave. It isn’t safe.”
“God damn it, what the fuck does that mean?” I demanded. “You keep saying that, but I don’t know what it means!”
He opened his mouth to reply, but then he stopped, as though he’d heard something. A look of worry came over him, and he turned and gazed fearfully over his shoulder.
Then he vanished.
Okay, that was odd. This had to be a dream, since my father was dead, and the environment was just as surreal as the last couple times I’d seen him. But this was the first time he’d acted scared. Usually, he was all sanctimonious, telling me I had to fulfill my destiny or some shit like that.
A voice came from the foot of the bed.
“Shhhhhh . . .”
I struggled to lift my head. I was still so groggy. The antidote to the poison apparently worked in the dream too.
I pushed my elbows underneath me, so I could sit up slightly. A cute, little Black girl stood at the end of the bed. She looked to be eight or nine years old. Her skin was dark like chocolate, and her hair was done up in six braids, which ended in plastic butterfly clips like my friend Shondra used to have when we were in third grade. She wore a red, Wonder Woman t-shirt and pink shorts. Nice outfit, kid.
The girl held a finger up to her lips in the classic be-quiet sign. A grin spread up her face. She lowered her hand.
“The man with the staff has a secret he can’t tell you,” she said.
I cocked my head. That was even more mysterious than the shit my father kept repeating.
“Daddy’s being chased by two people he doesn’t know and a friend,” she said.
What the hell? This kept getting weirder.
“Someone is looking for you,” she said.
Then she raised her finger to her mouth again.
“Shhhhhh . . .”
As she shushed me, she faded into darkness. When she was gone, a giggle echoed across the darkness. It was a happy, child’s laugh. An I’ve-got-a-secret chuckle.
God damn, my brain was just about as fucked up as it had been in my whole life. Every time I shut my eyes some weird-ass shit decided to pop up and have a party in my mind.
A terrific roar sounded overhead. I really didn’t want to, but I looked up to see what it was.
An enormous gout of water fell from above as though God had decided to drop Lake Erie on me.
It hit me before I had time to scream, and I was pushed into the bed, as though I’d been floating on the surface of the ocean. In seconds, I was submerged, surrounded in black water. I drifted endlessly, convinced I would drown.
Eventually, everything was dark. I knew nothing more.
Ash
Ash rubbed his temples. In the dim illumination of his office at Order headquarters, the light from his computer screen was giving him a headache. He checked his watch. It was nine-forty-three PM. He shouldn’t be here this late. All he was going to do was make it impossible for himself to sleep tonight.
But he couldn’t let it go. He needed to find an answer.
Ephraim Silverman had gone somewhere. He was Nephilim, not a ghost. He couldn’t vanish. He couldn’t teleport. He was somewhere.
But where?
Ash was furious with himself. He’d known Ephraim was shady. He knew Ephraim was too angry over his father’s death and his obsession with the N’Chai Toroth. He should have kept a closer eye on him.
But he just hadn’t imagined he’d abuse his authority to conspire with an elder vampire to set up Sassy. It was just too inconceivable. At least it was before he did it.
Besides, Ephraim was Ash’s superior officer in The Order. Spying on your supervisor is a hard-damned thing to do, whether it’s advisable or not.
So where could he have possibly gone? When Ash had gone over his head to report his behavior, Ephraim had disappeared as though the morning sun had baked him away like fog. He was nowhere. Neither was his g
irlfriend. Which just couldn’t be.
Ash pored over three years’ of expense reports, searching for some clue that might point towards his traitorous former captain.
Pattern detected, his computer screen read.
Ash tapped a key, without much hope that the techno-spell he was running would find a valid lead.
Lunch at Jordan’s the third Tuesday of every month for the past nine months.
Ash was tempted to dismiss it. He very much doubted that where Ephraim ate lunch made much of a difference in finding him now. But who knew? Maybe there was something there beyond a regular special Ephraim liked.
With a sigh, he instructed the program to run a subroutine analyzing those particular receipts. Then he leaned back and rubbed his temples again.
A moment later, his computer chimed. He looked up, expecting another result from the scan, but instead it was a Facebook notification. Eager for any break from the current drudgery, he switched apps.
Message request from Felicia Fox.
Ash blinked three times. Felicia? They weren’t Facebook friends. They weren’t connected on any social media, although he monitored her posts across all platforms as a means of keeping tabs on Sassy. Felicia was her best friend, and Sassy constantly broke The Veil, telling Felicia everything she knew about the magical world. Ash was mildly concerned Felicia would create an inadvertent security risk, which would cause a lot of trouble.
He clicked on the notification, approving Felicia’s message.
We need to talk, Felicia wrote.
Shit. Talk about what? The last time he’d seen her, she and Sassy got out of his car on the Cincinnati Riverfront, saying they never wanted to see him again. Prior to that, she’d been kidnapped by Gerard Dulac. If Sassy hadn’t come to her rescue, Dulac would have ordered Felicia to slit her own throat. There was no kind of good conversation Felicia Fox would want to have with him.
What about? Ash typed back.
Sassy.
Yeah, no kidding. Of course, Felicia wanted to talk about Sassy. And Ash was pretty sure it wouldn’t be nice talk.
What about her?
No, Felicia replied. Not over the Internet. No way is that secure enough. Face to face.
Ash blew out another sigh. This had already been a grueling day. He really didn’t need to finish it getting raked over the coals by Sassy’s best friend.
Where? he sent.
The usual place. One hour.
The usual place. Of course. Java Jive. The overpriced coffee shop where he had first met Felicia. Right after Sassy had spilled the truth about The Order to her.
He sighed yet again. He’d promised Sassy he’d stay out of her life from now on. It was what she wanted, and he was determined to respect that.
But he hated himself for doing it.
Pattern detected, the computer messaged.
Absently, he clicked the tab to see what it had found.
All checks were for $23.46, it reported.
Great. So Ephraim got the same thing every time. How illuminating.
He checked his watch. If he left now, he could get to Java Jive a few minutes early. That seemed like a good idea. That way, if this were a trap, he’d at least be able to scout out an escape.
Besides, it was a dead-end here anyway. He wasn’t looking forward to a conversation with Felicia about Sassy. But it had to be better than this. Didn’t it?
***
Forty-eight minutes later, he was sitting across from Felicia at the table she and Sassy usually frequented. By coincidence, she was wearing the same paisley-patterned top she had on the night he had met her. Her blonde hair was down, but she had it pulled back in a turquoise head band. She had a green tea in front of her that looked like it was radioactive from the way it glowed. But she sipped it only occasionally. A frown marred her face, and worry crowded her brown eyes.
“Thanks for meeting me,” she said, her tone curt.
She was obviously still angry with him. She was incredibly protective of Sassy, and despite the fact that he’d made sure to pay out the second half of her contract, Ash was not on Sassy’s good side at the moment.
“Sure,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Sassy’s disappeared,” she said.
She might as well have punched him in the stomach. All the air went out of him. Cold horror crept up the back of his head and threatened to envelop his entire mind.
“What do you mean, ‘disappeared’?” he said.
“What do you think I mean, Ash?” she snapped. “She’s gone, vanished. I can’t find her.”
Dear God. First Ephraim and now Sassy? Had he gotten to her? Had someone else? Ash couldn’t believe it. Sassy was too good for that. She’d survived Gerard Dulac. Ephraim wasn’t good enough to take her out. His armored skin might protect him from her, but there was no way he was a skilled enough fighter to beat her. Unless he had help.
“I’ve asked Ben to help find her,” Felicia went on. “But he practically refused. It was like he wasn’t interested in protecting his own sister.”
“Have you involved the police?” Ash asked.
“Jesus, Ash, you’re as bad as Ben.”
“How’s that?”
“That’s all he wanted me to do too. Just call the cops, let them investigate it. Well two problems: First, the cops don’t give a shit that another poor girl from the inner city went missing. If they bother to investigate at all, they wouldn’t make much effort. They’d probably figure she did everyone a favor.
“And secondly, she left a note.”
“Okay, slow down,” Ash said, his mind reeling. “First of all, I was not suggesting you call the police. The last thing Sassy needs is the police looking for her, and there is no way The Order wants the mundane authorities searching for a Nephilim. I asked so that I would know what the situation was.
“Secondly, what’s this about a note?”
Tears formed in Felicia’s eyes. Her lips quivered. Whatever she was about to say broke her heart. Ash was afraid to hear it.
Felicia turned and reached into her purse. She pulled out a folded slip of paper.
“Yesterday, she texted me to meet her at her apartment,” Felicia said, her voice cracking. “When I got there, this was taped to the door.”
She passed the paper to Ash, then grabbed a napkin and dabbed at her eyes. She couldn’t stop weeping.
His hands shook as he took it and unfolded it. A handwritten message in surprisingly neat script was inside:
Felicia,
I love you. That’s why I have to leave. I know that seems like a stupid thing to say but hear me out.
I’ve put your life in danger. You were nearly killed by Gerard Dulac, just so he could get to me. And Ephraim has apparently escaped from The Order and is out there somewhere, hunting for me. So there is no way for you to be safe as long as you are with me.
I’m sorry, but the only way for me to protect you is to leave you. I know this will break your heart. It breaks mine. But I couldn’t possibly tell the truth about loving you if I were to stay with you. I’d be lying. I’d be being selfish. And that’s not love.
Please don’t try to find me. It’s better for you if you don’t know where I am. Then they can’t try to hurt you to locate me.
I wish you all the happiness in the world. I wish I could have shared it with you. Take care of yourself. Knowing you are safe and alive is the best I can hope for.
I love you, Felicia Fox. You were the best thing that ever happened to me.
Love,
Sassy
The final words were difficult to read. Ash’s eyes were blurry from his own tears. What kind of pain had Sassy been in to write something like that? How frightened must she have been to have gone to ground without even saying goodbye to her best friend, her girlfriend? What had The Order done to her?
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
“Thanks,” Felicia said, taking back the note. “But sorry doesn’t do shit for me, Ash. I need you to help m
e find her.”
“What? What makes you think I can?”
Fire blazed across her eyes. Her lip curled in anger. He’d never seen Felicia like this.
“Because this is your fault, Ash!” she growled. “You hired her. You talked her into that supremely stupid job. You were supposed to protect her, and you didn’t!
“And now, she thinks she has to abandon me to protect me. She thinks she has to break my heart and hers – like this is the end of the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man. She’s out there all alone, with no one to help her, to take care of her. And she needs someone to take care of her, Ash.
“So you’re going to help. You’re going to help me find her, because this is all your fault!”
Her words blistered him. What could he say?
After all, she was right.
“Felicia, are you sure it’s a good idea to look for her? I mean, she left to protect you. Ephraim’s still out there. If he knows where to search for her . . .”
Her expression turned to ice. Ash had seen that look from her once before. After the first attempt on Dulac’s life had failed, Ash had come to Felicia’s apartment in search of Sassy. As soon as Felicia had seen him, he’d felt the temperature drop twenty degrees.
“Listen to me, Ash, and you listen good,” she said. “I love her! Love! We were supposed to be together. She’d finally come around. We were finally a couple before you fucked it all up with your half-assed, vampire-assassination scheme.
“And this is a typical Sassy response to things going wrong. Muleheaded Sassy always chooses the hardest, least-sensible solution to any problem. And that’s what she’s done here, Ash. She’s decided she can fix everything by just leaving.
“But her ‘solution’ doesn’t solve anything, Ash!” Her voice cracked, and she started weeping again. “All it does it hurt me and her.”
Felicia grabbed another napkin and blew her nose. Then she wiped away tears and fixed Ash with another furious glare.
“So you’re going to help me, Ash,” she said. “I didn’t want to ask you. You’re pretty much the last person on Earth I want to ask.
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