by Tricia Owens
It was bad to generalize, and I tried my best not to stereotype anyone, but it was something I had begun to accept as fact. Magickal beings weren't all tricksters, but because the majority of them were in hiding or were using their magick to survive in a human's world, they'd learned to exaggerate and lie for their own benefit. Their tall tales were as high as the Empire State Building. The fish that got away was Moby Dick. Christian and his alleged world traveling sister being a perfect example of this.
Usually these stories were harmless. But sometimes they weren't. Sometimes beings tried to trick me into believing a false reality so I would sympathize with their plights at the risk of doing harm to myself or to Moonlight.
I felt like Vale was doing that now by weaving a story about himself, Christian, and Diana that left out all the ugly parts and highlighted how innocent and benign they all were. I didn't feel threatened, but I was beginning to think that bad luck didn't just fall on someone; it was drawn there by invisible leads, like those photographs of trees sending positive energy streamers up to bolts of lightning.
Vale, Christian and Diana—at least one of them must have done something to cause Vale to be possessed. Whether they were aware of that action was another matter.
"Ooh, ooh! There it is," Melanie said, pointing ahead. She pulled into the driveway of a cookie cutter pueblo-style house that was all the rage in Vegas. The rocks in its yard were all neatly contained within its boundaries. That and the lack of weeds were the only signs that someone regularly visited the place and kept it up.
Melanie and I followed Vale up the path to the front door. I wasn't sure how I felt about the fact that I could glimpse light seeping through the blinds in the windows.
I quickly pulled out my phone. I had three bars, which meant there was a cell phone tower near enough to give me a signal. If the light indicated that Christian was home, why hadn't he answered his phone?
Were we walking into a trap?
Vale, either not noticing the light or not concerned by it, didn't bother knocking on the front door. He simply put his hand on the knob and turned it.
"It's magickally keyed for me," he explained as he opened the door.
We stepped inside and were greeted by a puff of cool air via A/C. Another sign that someone might be home.
Immediately to our left was a shadowed, sunken formal living room with only a pool table for furniture. Two pool cues rested on the felt. A framed, black and white photograph of downtown Las Vegas during what looked like the late '60s hung on one wall, opposite another framed, black and white photograph of the old Lady Luck sign.
A pair of wide archways led to what looked like it might be a kitchen and a larger room. It was from the unseen room that the light appeared to be coming.
It was also from where the smell was emanating.
Vale stood frozen in the doorway, his face bloodless. I sympathized with his fear, but we couldn't stand there all day. I summoned Lucky and stepped past him. My heart was in my throat as I crept deeper inside Christian's house.
Chapter 6
I felt right at home, which was not a good thing. Christian's family room looked like an extension of my cursed bathroom, except it wasn't a hallucination that disappeared when I blinked hard enough.
It was decorated the way you'd expect a single guy would do it: with oversized black leather sofas, a big, ugly wooden coffee table capable of holding plenty of beer cans and Big Gulp cups, and a gigantic entertainment system on which the majority of Christian's decorating budget undoubtedly had been spent. Surrounding the enormous flat screen TV were all sorts of expensive-looking electronics like Blu-ray/DVD players, receivers, and various portable stereo systems. The floor was white tile. The tiles would be the easiest to clean of all the blood.
Stick an m80 firecracker inside a balloon filled with blood and you'd get the scene I was looking at. Blood was spattered everywhere. Arterial-type spray had painted the blades of the inert ceiling fan, dripped down the sliding glass doors, and was speckled along the ceiling molding. The thickest concentration of blood was on the coffee table, where a large puddle suggested it was the epicenter of the carnage. The leather sofas were probably also drenched, but the black color hid most of the evidence. I still wouldn't sit down on them for a million bucks.
"This is stranger than it looks, guys." Melanie tiptoed as close as she could to the sofas without stepping in any splotches of blood. She sniffed the air. "Yeah, way stranger!"
"The only way this could be stranger than it looks was if you told me I'm actually looking at a sriracha hot sauce fight gone wrong."
"Ha! It's definitely not sriracha." She leaned down and sniffed the back of the sofa. "Hmm."
I felt Vale's presence before he entered my vision from the corner of my eye. He'd regained his color, but he wore the expression of someone who was approaching a familiar car smashed in the midst of a ten car pile-up.
I understood his dread, but something was nagging at me and it became apparent a second later.
"There aren't any drag marks," I said. "A body that's lost this much blood isn't walking away from this. It's not even standing. So how did it move? Did someone else carry it away?"
"Someone did carry it away and it probably wasn't that difficult." Melanie hopscotched back to us. "The blood didn't come from a human. It's goat blood!"
Learning we were looking at the scene of a ritual sacrifice was only marginally better. I couldn't bring myself to feel relieved.
"I guess that explains the brimstone smell on Christian," I said, though I was sorry I had to when I saw Vale's expression.
"He wouldn't have attempted to summon a demon," he said softly but in a way that revealed how extremely pissed he was. "Whatever this is...it's not what it looks like."
"Are you sure?" I persisted, because he so far hadn't exactly been forthcoming. "Rituals aren't always for evil purposes, you know. He could've been, I don't know, attempting to summon the perfect girlfriend or influence the odds on an upcoming baseball game."
I could see him struggling to find an explanation. "Or, it could be a set-up to make him look like he's dabbling in black magick."
I frowned and looked over the mess. "I guess it could be. But who would do that and why? And where is Christian?"
I looked for anything else in the room that could provide a clue as to what had happened here. I quickly found one.
"Uh, guys, did anyone else notice that the blood is still fresh? It's only barely beginning to coagulate." A bad feeling swept over my shoulders. "Just how big is this house, Vale?"
"Large enough," he muttered, just as the three of us heard the sound of a door opening from the other end of the house.
The garage door was to our right, just past the dining room. But to get there we'd have to run through all the blood and we'd leave a trail as apparent as a neon arrow.
I pointed. "The back door!"
We all darted for it.
Vale had just slid the door closed behind us when the first shadows fell across the white tiles in the living room. He ducked back and shoved Melanie and me away from the doors.
Christian's back yard was huge and was shaped like a rectangle. Beyond the covered patio, directly in the middle of the yard, sat an Olympic-sized pool. No waterslides or dolphins, dammit, however the yard contained the most grass I'd seen outside of a Las Vegas park. Diana must have been responsible for that bit of witchcraft because I was pretty sure homeowners were allotted about a cup of water a week for landscaping.
A huge brick oven, shaped like a gnome hat, sat several yards from the edge of the patio and it was to this that we all sprinted.
Vale grabbed me by the upper arm and dragged me next to him beside the oven, which smelled like burnt pizza. No way could I be hungry, though, after seeing that bloodbath inside. The three of us crouched there with a clear view through the glass back doors into the living room.
Three people in black robes entered the room from the hallway. Their hoods were thrown back,
allowing us to see their faces, not that we'd be going to the cops with any of this anytime soon.
It was our old friends Baldy and Goatee, trading in the motorcycle duds for cleric wear. Leading them was a third man I'd never seen before and definitely would have remembered if I had. He was tall and commanding and had a shaved head covered with cornrow-like lines of tattoos that could have been Elvish poetry or choice passages from the Necronomicon. My money was on the latter. He gave me the willies.
Though I couldn't hear anything that the men said, the obsequious body language of Baldy and Goatee told me that Mr. Tattoo was their leader. He directed the other two to begin setting out black candles throughout the spattered room.
"They're in the early stages of a dark ritual. ¡Para nada!" Melanie squeezed my hand until my fingertips turned white. "Anne, are we going to sit here while they try to summon a demon in Christian's living room? Because I'm thinking this is one time I don't want front row seats!"
"We can stop them," I said confidently.
Four more robed figures entered the room.
"Okay, maybe we can stop them."
"It doesn't matter how many there are," Vale snarled.
He was furious, the veins standing out in his neck. He was one of those guys who looked incredibly sexy when they were angry, like he'd tear your clothes off and throw you to the bed and you'd love every second of it.
And it was so not the time for that kind of imagery.
"I'm not letting them go through with this," he declared.
"Let's not kid ourselves," I said. "They're in there summoning a demon. What if the ritual pulls at the demon inside you?" I didn't flinch from the ferocity of Vale's gaze when he turned it on me. "You're not in this alone. You've got a demonic hitchhiker inside you who's eager to grab any opportunity it can to boot you out of the car and take over the wheel. You can't risk it, Vale."
"This is Christian's home. I can't let them desecrate it like this."
"You may be too late."
I was sorry to say as much, but Christian's living room was already an abattoir and I doubted the one-two punch of Febreze and Mr. Clean would be enough to return it to normal.
"Oh, my god!" Melanie jerked on my arm, pulling me off balance and onto my ass. But I didn't complain when I saw what she was pointing at.
I gasped.
In the grass on the other side of the brick oven, framed by moonlight, lay a naked man. He'd been staked out like an animal pelt.
"Christian!" Vale scrambled around the back of the oven and to his friend's side.
The strawberry blond hunk appeared to be unconscious. Though he was naked, I had no desire to ogle the poor guy. His skin was an angry red and nearly every inch was blistered from the rays of the intense Vegas sun. He must have been staked out here all day. Maybe longer.
In addition to his burns, his skin was curiously wrinkled, practically shriveled, making him look years older than I believed him to be.
Vale lightly slapped his friend's cheek. "Christian, wake up. Open your eyes."
Melanie clutched my hand. "I don't see any injuries on him, do you?"
I shook my head, but I had a feeling I knew why the occultists hadn't needed to hurt him with violence. "Vale, we need to get him into the pool. Like, now!"
He looked up at me blankly, too stressed to comprehend what I'd said.
"He's a water fey! Look at him. He's drying up."
"Jesus," Vale choked in horror. With a curse, he yanked up the stake binding Christian's right wrist to the grass. "Help me!"
Melanie and I quickly worked on the stakes pinning his ankles down. The treatment he'd received was truly awful and I was relieved when the three of us finally freed him. Vale hefted his friend up and began dragging him to the pool.
I glanced back at the sliding doors. Something green glowed from inside the room, but the robed figures blocked the source of the eerie light.
"Keep low but hurry," I urged.
Since it was a lap pool, there weren't any steps. Vale sat down and hopped off the edge and into the water, fully clothed. Melanie and I helped roll Christian's dead weight into Vale's waiting arms.
I glanced at the sliding glass doors. Still okay. Weird green glow, but no one was paying any attention to the shenanigans happening in the backyard
"Christian, wake up." Vale gently splashed water over the other man's face. He rubbed more of it over his friend's throat, trying to rehydrate his skin. "Come on. Don't force me to give you a full body massage in front of the girls. Wake up and open your eyes."
I counted the minutes we were exposed by the pool and there were far too many of them. I was also worried about the pallor of Vale's skin, which I didn't attribute to his concern over Christian. The demon rite happening inside the house was rousing the demon inside him, just as I'd feared. How long would he be able to hold out against it?
Vale abruptly jerked and tried to peer down into the water as if he'd felt something brush against his feet. In his arms, Christian began to stir. Melanie and I watched, our breaths held, as Vale cautiously released his friend. Christian bobbed in the water on his back for a moment and then sank beneath the surface in a slow descent, as though someone were pulling on his legs from beneath.
Or as though he had a giant fin that was easing him backwards until he was fully submerged.
"So cool," Melanie said, awed, as we watched Christian's form make a slow, groggy loop beneath the water.
He reminded me of a fish that had been released back into the water after being hooked. The lights were on in the pool and they glinted off his red-gold hair, which complimented the pale reddish hue of his dolphin-like tail. He could have passed for Aquaman's cousin.
Looking at Christian, a connection tried to form in my head, but it couldn't quite cross the gap.
Though a handsome water fey was an awe-inspiring sight, I'm pretty sure no red-blooded woman or gay man would have blamed me for casting a sneaky glance at Vale as he climbed out of the pool. His clothes were plastered lovingly to his body. He absently ran a hand through his unruly hair, slicking it back off his forehead, as he watched his friend recover in the pool. When he smiled with clear affection for Christian, I felt bad for staring and looked away.
Almost as an afterthought, I glanced back at the house. Mr. Tattoo stood at the glass doors, staring out at us.
"Jesus!" I reached forward and began slapping the surface of the water. "Christian, get out!"
When Vale and Melanie saw what had freaked me out, they, too, began slapping the surface. Melanie began yelling. Beneath the water, Christian paused, his attention caught by all the commotion. He quickly swam back to us.
"Vale!" he blurted upon breaking the surface and seeing his friend at the pool's edge. His smile of relief suggested he wasn't completely in the dark about past events.
"Get out of the water, Christian. We have to get out of here." Vale pointed at his house. "They're summoning a demon!"
"That's not good," Christian muttered. He easily heaved himself out of the water using his upper body.
The scales on his enormous tail turned iridescent as they caught the moonlight. It appeared as though his lower body were carved from opal. But the effect was short lived. With a shimmer, his tail separated and transformed back into two very sunburned human legs.
When he tried to stand on them, he immediately collapsed. Vale and Melanie helped him back to his feet, while I turned to face the house. Mr. Tattoo had been joined by a second hooded figure whose features I couldn't make out.
Whoever Mr. Tattoo or his buddy was didn't matter. What I'd experienced told me enough about how this had to go. Simply running, unfortunately, wouldn't help us.
"You guys take him to the car," I told my friends.
"Moody, don't be crazy," Vale panted angrily.
I looked back at him. I was worried by what I saw. He was visibly on the edge of his control, shaking like a junkie in need of a fix. I figured it was a matter of minutes before he lost the
fight to the demon inside him that was being energized by the nearby ritual.
"You have to go. They'll catch us unless I slow them down."
"You're going to stand up against all of them?"
I gave him a dry smile. "Me and my little friend."
He opened his mouth to argue but then thought better of it. He gave a brisk, unhappy nod.
A thought occurred to me. "Christian, do you own this place?"
He was blistered and sunburned, but he still managed to look endearing as he puzzled over my question. "I do. So what?"
"You've got insurance?" I flashed him a slanted, desperate smile.
His eyes widened. "I've got plenty."
"Okay, go, then. Hurry, before Vale's demon gets out."
But this time it was Melanie who held them up, her expression stony. She knew what I was risking, which was more than just a face-off against these cultists.
"Anne, they'll know for sure if you do this."
I nodded firmly. "Hopefully if the Oddsmakers are as powerful and all-knowing as everyone says they are they'll understand why."
She snorted. "And if they don't?"
Then I was heading for the Guantanamo of magick.
"It doesn't matter, Melly. We're in big trouble now and we don't have a choice. So please go!"
She scowled and I loved her for it, but I was glad that she eventually conceded the point. Sometimes situations just sucked, and this was one of them. As she and a struggling Vale dragged Christian to the side gate, I told myself not to think about the consequences of my upcoming actions and just do them.
I reached into that rumbling core inside me where Lucky slept and woke him up. He roared to life, flush with a generous helping of energy. I needed big and bad and I needed it yesterday. Lucky obliged, posing above my head like a golden god of, well, Chinese dragons. He would have looked awesome sitting on the roof of a noodle house.
But he was mine and I wanted to put some major fear into these demon summoning bozos so they'd leave us alone. I envisioned fire like bolts of orange and yellow silk streaming through the air. Lucky obligingly blasted flames at the house. They flowed over the covered patio and roof and coiled and boiled against the glass doors, heating them until they began to warp and melt.