by D V Wolfe
“Just thought I’d call to see how the ole Hellgate was doing today.”
“Probably a lot better than Stacks. Did you find a place to ditch his body?” She asked.
I turned and peered in through the window. “Yeah, a Motel 6 in Indianapolis.”
“Huh,” Rosetta said. “Seems a distance to go for a burial but it’s not such a bad idea. Did you make it look like a working girl slit his throat and robbed him?”
“What kind of TV do you watch after I leave, Rosetta?”
“Oh it’s one of those cop shows. Prostitutes are always killing their johns,” She said.
I shook my head. “As much as I love this line of conversation, Stacks is alive. He had a couple of ideas for possible ways to take down that demon and so we’re going to the library here tomorrow to dig up some research.”
“Darn, I had good odds on you skinning him alive and turning his hide into a seat cover for that truck of yours.”
“Steering wheel cover,” I said. “There’s not enough of his boney hide to make a seat cover.”
“Well,” Rosetta said. “My minister came over for tea.”
“And?” I said.
“He used the downstairs bathroom when I was on the back porch with his wife.”
“Uh-oh,” I said.
“Yeah, luckily he’s convinced himself that it was my cat that attacked him in the bathroom. I guess the hex bags worked to a degree. The wraith was able to rise and knock him down but couldn’t kill him.”
“Rosetta,” I said. “You don’t have a cat.”
“I guess I have to get one now….hold on a minute, Bane,”
I heard her put the phone down and then I heard the sound of her twelve-gauge shotgun.
“Rosetta!” I called into the phone. A second later, I heard her reciting a rite and then there was silence. “Rosetta!” I called again.
There was a clatter and she came back on the line. “My god you’re needy. Sorry, I found out that all of the kid’s hex bags were in the wrong spots and I’ve had a conga line of uninvited guests from downstairs. It’s been an exciting day. Anyways, you should be sleeping, Missy.”
“So should you.”
“Well I’m baking,” Rosetta said. “Speaking of, my pie is done.”
“Strawberry Rhubarb?” I asked.
“Huckleberry Buckle.”
I could almost hear her smugness through the phone. “That’s cold, Rosetta, making my favorite the day after I leave.”
“Oh well, if you make it back this way soon enough, I’ll save you some.”
I sighed. “Probably not going to happen. If we find what we need tomorrow, we’re heading to St. Louis. We might have to stop back by Stacks’ if we’re really unlucky. We’re not sure what exactly we’re going to find out tomorrow, but the clock is ticking.”
A few red sparks skittered across the concrete in front of me and Festus appeared from around a van parked a few spaces down from Lucy. He looked like he’d just been turned over someone’s knee. He glowered at me as he smoothed his hair and straightened his tie.
“Rosetta, I’m gonna have to go. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Happy hunting,” she said and hung up. I slipped the phone in my pocket and crossed my arms.
“Missed a spot,” I said to Festus who was now refolding the red silk handkerchief in his jacket pocket. “There’s some brimstone on your shoulder.”
“Always a pleasure, Bane,” Festus said, his voice shorter than usual.
“Where’s our quippy banter, Festus? I miss it,” I said.
“Up yours. Will that suffice?” Festus wouldn’t meet my gaze.
“What the hell happened to you?” I asked.
He shook his head. “My problem and none of your business.”
I shrugged. “Well, I doubt you made the trip just to stand in a Motel 6 parking lot and shoot the breeze with me.”
Festus snapped his fingers and the red notebook appeared. Without ceremony, he flipped it to the last page containing his red scribbles. “As I understand it, you took down a Hayman tonight?”
I nodded. Festus flipped back a few pages. He ran a finger down the print, stopping mid-way down the page when he came to the column containing the corresponding soul score.
“Two souls.”
I shook my head. “A god is only worth two souls?”
Festus threw his hands in the air. “What do you want, a Willkie button? I don’t make the rules. I’m getting raked over the coals every time I go home for doing my job for you and then when I’m with you, all you do is bitch and moan to me about me DOING MY FUCKING JOB! There’s no pleasing you assholes.”
He was swelling in his meat suit. “Easy there, Festus. What will your tailor say if you bust those seams?”
Festus took a deep breath and snapped his fingers, sending the notebook back to where it came from. “Well the soul scores aren’t my decision. And being your accountant wasn’t my decision and standing in this fucking, well-lit, skanky parking lot wasn’t my decision!” He pointed his finger at the nearest parking lot flood light and cocked his thumb. The light bulb shattered.
“Nice shootin’ Tex,” I said. I took the washcloth off the back of my neck and held it to the front.
Festus grinned. “You know, my boss downstairs says I shouldn’t award you any points if you’re injured in the process of taking something down.”
“I’d like to injure your boss.”
“Well, enough posturing. I thought you’d be halfway to St. Louis by now. What are you doing here?”
“Research. Oddly enough, I didn’t feel like a suicide mission would be the right move at present.”
Festus snorted. “Bane, every day of your life is a suicide mission. At least the current suit you’re wearing seems more agile than the last. I have to say though, it was fun to watch those faeries kick your seventy-year-old butt up and down the Florida keys.”
“Speaking of which, I ran into two of them.”
Festus cocked his head to look at me. “Did you kill them? I didn’t get the memo. Not that it would have mattered. They aren’t worth anything.”
I shook my head. “Let them off with a warning.”
“You’re getting soft, Bane.”
“Hardly. There were two innocents present. I didn’t want to waste the time trying to explain away what had happened, and then more time just to scrub their brains squeaky, after I decapitated a couple of Pucas in front of them.”
Festus shrugged and pulled out a pack of clove cigarettes.
“Really?” I asked, watching him open the pack, pull one out, and stick it in his mouth.
“What?” He asked, around the cigarette, as he flicked his lighter.
“Demons having a vice?” I asked. “Seems too obvious.”
Festus took a long drag and let it out on a laugh. “You forget Bane, I used to be a man.” He paused. “I think.”
“A man who smoked cloves?” I asked, grinning.
Festus shook his head. “No. Cloves have healing properties for demons. Like your human vitamins.”
“Really?” I asked. “So you’re smoking a big pack of demon vitamins right now?”
“Damn straight,” Festus said.
As I watched Festus sucking on the clove cigarette, my thoughts strayed to the message I’d seen at Rosetta’s. “Festus, did someone...were you...did someone drink you?’
For the first time since I’d met Festus, I saw his persona shift. He turned pale and he suddenly seemed much smaller than his overconfident, blustering self.
“I’ll be around Bane,” He said, dropping his cigarette to the ground. It quickly burned into a pile of ash. With a last, hard glance at me, he said, “Meet me in St. Louie?”
“I’ll see you there,” I said.
He grinned and his grin stretched wide and distorted as he began to shimmer and then he started walking away. He disappeared into the shadows and a second later, a few scattered sparks, skipped across the ground and I kne
w he was gone.
I stood watching the place he’d vacated, thinking about Dad. Those bastards downstairs weren’t going to get the chance to turn him into one of them. I needed to get to work.
I pulled the cell phone back out of my pocket and speed-dialed ‘6’.
“Hello,” Walter rasped. It sounded like I’d woken him up. That was a pretty good sign.
“Still have house guests?” I asked.
Walter chuckled. “Nah, he wasn’t here for me. Just trying to get a line on you.”
“Ghoulie or Beastie?” I asked, my chest seizing up wondering if it had been the demon that was hunting me.
“Neither,” Walter said. He coughed and cleared his throat. “I don’t know his name. He just wanted to know where you were going to be.”
“What did he look like?” I asked.
“Honestly Bane, I was too scared to look. He caught me on the crapper. Ski cap, gloves, voice modifier.” This wasn’t good.
“Did you see his teeth? Were they black? Maybe red?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. “N-No…. I think he had normal teeth.” Well, that was good. Might not be Sister Smile’s gang.
“Was he really tall and stupid? Maybe had a partner waiting in the wings, somewhere just out of sight? Did seeing him give you a feeling like indigestion?” I supposed it could have been Vix and Sprig. Vix had been pretty pissed.
Another pause. “Well, I was on the crapper, Bane. But no, he didn’t seem all that tall. And he was smart enough to disguise his voice.”
Ok. Didn’t sound like Vix and Sprig. Who else was looking for me? Maybe Festus had squealed on me to some demon thug downstairs and the word had traveled up the food chain and now I had multiple prices on my head. Demons wouldn’t hurt Harbingers. Against the rules and disadvantageous to themselves. They listened to the weather reports too and it helped them keep track of where hunters would be. If it had just been against the rules, I’d be talking to Walter through an Ouija board right now, rather than a cell phone.
“Huh,” I said. “Not sure what customer that was, then.”
“You have a lot of them after you right now, Bane?”
“Small banquet hall would seat all of us, but, yeah.”
“Be careful.”
“Thanks, Walter.” I hung up and headed back into the room.
Noah and Stacks were snoring. Hard and loud. I sat in one of the chairs, pulled up to the small dining room table with the sawed-off on my lap, and the radio on low, flipping through a mental roll-a-dex of who I’d forgotten was on my tail at present. I kept coming back to the demon Nya had said had a hard-on for my demise. Was it possible that the demon was worried about my contract becoming null-and-void if I was able to make them null-and-void? But if he was at Walter’s trying to get information, who was in St. Louis?
I must have dozed off. When I opened my eyes, the sun was pouring in through the cheap blinds. I wiped a hand over my face and turned to look at Stacks and Noah. They were both still snoring and Stacks had scooted up the bed so he was now pile-driven into the pillows with his head buried in between them and his butt in the air. I would have thought Noah was dead if it hadn’t been for the racket he was making.
I turned the knob on the radio and blasted AC/DC. Noah opened one bloodshot eye and glared daggers at me.
“Rise and shine, boy scouts,” I said.
Noah shifted and pulled a pillow over his head. I got up and set the sawed-off on the table before rounding Noah’s bed and kicking the mattress Stacks was sleeping on. I heard his head thump on the wall.
“What the fuck?” I heard him mumble from somewhere in the pillows. Both boys still had their shoes on and were fully clothed. And I realized they smelled. I sniffed myself and knew I wasn’t one to talk.
“I’m taking a shower,” I said. Neither of them objected so I shut myself in the tiny bathroom and stood under the hot spray. I heard the door open and one of them peeing.
“Well, at least one of you is vertical,” I muttered.
The peeing stopped. “Bane?”
It was Stacks. “Who’d you think it was?” I asked him.
“Well, I was hoping it was Penelope Cruz,” he muttered.
“No such luck.” He was quiet. I said, “So you know exactly where this first edition in the library is, right? I mean, that library is huge, and I don’t want to waste…”
“Bane!” Stacks barked.
“What?”
“Can we talk about this later? It’s...It’s kind of hard to pee with you talking to me.”
“Oh. Sorry,” I said. “Whiz away.”
Noah was smart enough to wait until I was out of the bathroom. I stood in front of the mirror toweling off my hair. Short and purple. It was new for me. But I kind of liked it.
This suit had more of an athletic build. Not huge breasts like two suits ago and a definite improvement over the wiry-haired, skin, and bones chest of the last one. Though, I had to say, not having to wear a bra almost made it worth it. I’d brought in a new a-shirt from the pack of six in the toolbox and I tossed the remnants of the singed and bloody one I’d taken off into the trash. Stacks was sitting on the bed trying to chew a toenail off. I groaned. “You know that if this demon gets us, this is going to be my last mental picture of you.”
Stacks released his foot and spit on the floor. “You don’t have any toenail clippers do you?”
“No,” I said. “And you’re not using my toothbrush now.”
It was nine am when we all piled back into Lucy and headed to the library. At a stoplight, I glanced over at Stacks and Noah. Both had showered and then put back on the clothes they’d been wearing yesterday. They both had the same look of grim determination and a thought hit me. This was my mission. I was going to pull the people from the pit that I’d put there. I’d always planned to do it alone. Especially after Gary. But here were these two poor bastards, sitting next to me, on our way to our public library to figure out how to ice a demon. Fate is an asshole.
I pulled into the parking garage and we motored up a level until we found a spot. Noah kicked his door open and right into the side of a shiny new Mini Cooper parked next to us. We all froze as the alarm on the car went off and the broken window caved in.
“Close your door, Noah,” I said.
Noah just turned to look at me. Stacks reached across Noah and pulled the door closed. I backed out and we motored up another level and pulled into a parking space next to a beat-up Scout.
“There ya go, Noah,” I said. “Take a whack at this one. It doesn’t look like it just left its mother.”
Noah opened his door carefully and slid out. Stacks grinned at me and then followed behind Noah while I climbed out the driver’s door.
We passed the Mini Cooper and the woman who was apparently its owner on our way down to the library entrance. The white sweater tied L.L. Bean-style around her neck was quivering in rage as she screamed into her cell phone. “Yes Harry, that’s what I said! Some prick bashed in the side of my car!”