by Tricia Owens
"I promise I won't hurt her," I repeated for his sake.
"My mom isn't evil, I swear to you." He smiled wanly. "Overbearing, sure, but she never intended to summon a demon. She was just too trusting."
I shrugged. "On the bright side, you get to chastise her for hanging out with the wrong crowd."
Melanie bounced outside the yard gate, wanting to touch me but unable to pass the wards that were still up.
"Anne, you really have to be careful about Lucky." She shot anxious looks at Vale and Christian, as if unsure how much she could trust them. "The last time a sorcerer used power the way you have been lately, the Oddsmakers neutralized his magick and exiled him. They could do that to you, too. You'd lose Lucky!" She sucked in her breath. "And I'd lose you!"
I didn't tell her that I expected a worse fate than exile.
"Trust me that I'd rather not call up Lucky at all," I replied, and I meant it. I'd figured the Oddsmakers would have nabbed me by now. I felt like I'd gotten away with murder twice and had the paranoia to prove it. "But I'm not about to let Vagasso take this demon and run with it. What he could do with it would be a hundred times worse than anything that Lucky and I could do. Hell, he could literally bring about the end of the world if he's nutty enough and ambitious enough."
I wasn't spouting hyperbole, either. I'd never experienced magick as strong as what had smacked me into the pool. It made my heart race just to remember it. I'd rather face a giant, man-eating tarantula than Vagasso again.
"But you know what?" I said to my friends, because at this point I had to count the guys on my side, "I'll worry about Vagasso later. Right now my focus is on Vale and getting rid of his demon. We've got about three hours to exorcise the demon before Vale reverts to his stone form again. I have the feeling if we don't free him by then, Vagasso and Company will hit us hard and try to steal him back."
"She's right," Vale said. "Christian, go on with Melanie. "Recover your strength. We may need you later."
Christian slumped against the car, looking as sad and pink as a boiled shrimp. To my surprise, Melanie curled an arm gently around his waist and said softly, "It'll be okay, Christian."
Melanie didn't normally do "soft" anything. Her personality was closely connected to her monkey nature. She was the last person you wanted to bring with you to, say, a thoughtful period drama. She bounced in her seat and talked back to the screen continuously.
So to hear her showing this calm, tender side was a real shock to me. But Christian seemed to respond well to it, for the smile he turned on her held considerably less sadness than it had before.
"So that's settled, now go," I urged.
"Once Christian is feeling stronger we'll come to Orlaton's," Melanie told me, jabbing a finger at me for emphasis. "We want to help kick some butt!"
"I won't have all the fun without you," I promised with a wink.
She winked back, and then turned into a Mexican Florence Nightingale as she helped Christian into her car before jumping behind the wheel again.
I heard her cooing to him as she put on her seatbelt: "I'll take care of you, poor baby. My mom has all sorts of Mayan remedies that will make you feel better. Do you like tamales? She makes mean tamales..."
My good mood dimmed as I watched them drive off. Melanie was a good partner to have and I trusted her to have my back. We'd been through a lot together in the few years we'd known each other. My gaze moved to Vale, who gave me a thin smile as if he knew what I was thinking.
"Two outcasts against the world?" he asked archly. "How bad could the odds be?"
"Bad enough that I'd prefer to play bingo instead." I glanced at his clothes and mine, which were dripping on the sidewalk. "Let's dry off first. It might be cold where we're going."
I placed the last rocks to lower the wards and led the way to my shop. Once inside Moonlight, I left the lights off to avoid attracting the attention of potential customers. Of course as soon as I moved through the shop, the cameos started up.
"Anne Moody, the end times are upon you..."
"...woe to Anne Moody..."
"...woe, for the end is nigh..."
I smacked my hand on the counter above them to shut them up. That's when I noticed that the panda pin that my mother had given me was missing.
It normally sat on top of the register as a de facto lucky charm. For a second, I ludicrously thought the cameos had found a way to throw it away, knowing that it would hurt me.
But, no, a customer had to have stolen it.
"Dammit," I whispered to myself.
A sense of despair washed over me. The panda pin was the only thing I had left of my parents besides photos. Without that physical connection all I had were stories told to me by my Uncle.
My grief grew, morphing into hopelessness. How the hell were we going to defeat a demon and Vagasso? It was impossible.
"Everything in here looks a lot smaller now that I'm a six foot tall man and not a gargoyle or a statue," Vale murmured from somewhere behind me. "In becoming a man I've sacrificed the strength of my gargoyle form. All I've got now are my wits, which against a demon aren't much of a weapon. If you've changed your mind about this, Moody, I'd understand. This is nothing but suicide."
I blinked away the burn in my eyes. I couldn't give up and let him and maybe all of Las Vegas be hurt. It was just a plain shitty thing to do. Maybe I was all alone in the world now, but in that moment I knew that no one else in Las Vegas would be able to take my place. If I didn't pick up the thrown gauntlet and do this, we were all screwed.
My missing pin hurt me, but it wasn't the end of the world. The end of the world was doing nothing while Vagasso acted.
"I haven't changed my mind," I said quietly. Firmly. "This is my problem, too."
As consolation, I promised myself that when everything was over and all the demons were locked away where they should be, I'd find a way to put a tracking spell on that pin. I'd hunt down the thief and make them regret their unfortunate interest in my panda pin. Maybe I'd make them regret being born, too. I don't know. It all depended on my mood at the time.
"Hang on," I told Vale. I passed through the bead curtain to my studio.
Just my luck, my bathroom was a bloody disaster, which gave me an unwelcome flashback to Christian's place. I shuddered as I glanced in the mirror. At first I thought another hideous spirit stared back, but it was only me. It surprised a laugh out of me.
"How come in movies the heroine always looks hot during the finale?" I asked my reflection.
Mirror me had no answer, just winced as saltwater dripped into my eye.
I grabbed a couple of towels for Vale and me and then ducked out. Back in the shop, I tossed him one as I dried my wrecked hair with mine.
"Hotel Alison?" he asked, showing me the stitching on the end of his towel and looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
"Oh, uh, ha ha. Just a souvenir from my one and only trip to Paris." Damn. Now he'd think I was a cheapskate and a thief.
"Wish I'd known you were there," he said casually as he began rubbing his hair with the towel. "I'm a great tour guide."
I'll just bet you are, I thought. Maybe I needed to make a second trip to Paris.
I draped my towel around my head to hide my heated cheeks as I began walking through the shop.
"Tell me there's something here," I murmured to myself as I looked for anything that might be useful. In a magickal pawn shop, you never really knew. I passed on golf clubs and unsharpened katanas and ended up pulling a ten-foot long replica Native American spear off the wall that had been traded earlier in the year for a Casio keyboard. Its iron blade had sharpened edges, so I definitely got the better deal on that exchange.
I handed it to Vale. "This might come in handy since you're only a puny man," I said with a smirk.
"I never said I was puny," he retorted with a smirk of his own.
His hair was drying and curling into waves and I badly wanted to touch it. I settled with accepting the damp towel he handed me
and walking back through the beaded curtain.
"How experienced are you with exorcisms?" I heard him ask.
"Does being a fan of horror movies count?" I called back. "I've got all my eggs in Orlaton's basket for this one, though I doubt even he has done many, if he's done any at all. I'm going to change clothes real quick. I'm sorry I don't have any guys' things for you that would fit. My uncle was my height."
"That's alright. I'm glad to hear that you don't."
He didn't say anything more, and I forced myself not to read anything into that as I hastily dragged on a dry pair of jeans and switched out my damp, burned top for a Henley and my heaviest leather jacket. Even though Vegas was warm at night I hadn't forgotten how cold it had gotten in Tomes during the ritual to summon the Norwegian serial killer.
As I dressed, I peered through the bead curtain into the shop. Moonlight streamed in through the shop's remaining unbroken front window, giving me an unencumbered view of Vale as he explored the shop, spear in hand. He didn't look skeptical or dismissive of the objects for sale as Christian had been, only curious.
When I re-entered the shop, I saw that he had stopped in front of the painting of the English picnic. The mini axe murderer had just finished up.
Vale pointed at the bloody carnage on the canvas. "I'm guessing this isn't a Monet."
"In eight seconds it'll reset itself."
We watched the mini axe murderer walk back into the forest. I could almost hear him whistling with satisfaction over a job well done.
"Watching it over and over again is a good way to toughen you up," I said.
"Or make you lose all hope in humanity."
"That, too."
"This place is cursed," he observed, turning to fully face me. He searched my face. "It must be difficult working here every day, surrounded by so much negative energy."
I tried to keep my tone light, but I couldn't stop some of the strain of working here seep into my voice as I replied, "It has its days."
He touched my elbow and it was nothing, a brush of fingers over leather, but I felt some of my stress dissipate as though he'd absorbed it from me.
"Seems as though you're the one with the enemies," he said. "I don't like that."
"More like I inherited them. Along with the shop. It's a long, strange story and I don't mind telling it to you but I want to get this demon out of you sooner rather than later, so..."
He caught my arm as I turned to go.
"Thank you for helping me, Moody."
"You don't need to thank me. This needs to be done. It's a bonus that I'm doing it for a friend."
He frowned. "I'm friend zoned already?"
I floundered. "I didn't—I mean, I—"
"I'm teasing," he said softly.
I let out my breath and laughed at myself.
His gaze moved over my face again, like he was mapping every inch of it. Another moment longer and I would have expected him to lean forward as if for a kiss.
But he and I were currently in a horror movie, not a romance, and so the moment didn't come.
He let go of my arm and led the way to the door. "You're right, Moody. Two's company, but three's a crowd. We've still got a lot of work to do."
Thinking about the demon inside him, I mentally agreed. Threesomes just weren't my scene even if this was Las Vegas.
It was time to make this party a private one.
~~~~~
Orlaton wasn't happy to see us. Big surprise.
"No, I don't have an appointment," I said as soon as his large eyes began to narrow in the door slot. "But I do have everything you asked me for and then some." I placed my hand on Vale's shoulder. "This is the gargoyle, Vale."
"I know what he is. How did you pull him out of form?"
"Let's just say I have friends in low places," I said coyly.
I could tell Orlaton was dying to know what that meant, but his ego wouldn't allow him to ask. It was no wonder his head was so large.
With a heavy sigh, he opened the door for us. If Vale was startled by Orlaton's youth, he didn't let it show.
"You've made things more difficult for yourselves," Orlaton said as he again walked off without a backwards glance.
"What do you mean?" I asked. We came to the center rotunda where the occultists had tried to contact the Norwegian serial killer. No one was in the room now, nor had I glimpsed anyone within the stacks as we'd walked through the shop.
Orlaton stopped with his back to a bookshelf and crossed his arms over his chest. He peered disapprovingly at us from over the frames of his glasses. "Your gargoyle—"
"My name is Vale and don't talk about me like I'm not here," he said calmly.
Orlaton pursed his lips, waited a measured beat to let us know he was ticked off by the interruption, and then continued. "Whoever did this to you clearly failed to warn you that in doing so they've measured your life in hours."
"Why don't you try elaborating on that," Vale said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"You were pulled out of your shifter form while still under the constraints of a curse."
"What curse?" I cut in.
He rolled his eyes. "Planting a demon into an object isn't done as part of a spell. It's an act of black magick. It's a hex or a curse. And since that curse wasn't removed before he changed forms, the curse is now bastardized." Orlatan added haughtily to Vale, "If you shift back into a gargoyle form, statue or other, while this modified curse remains active, you will never be a man again."
My jaw fell open. "But that's inevitable as soon as the sun rises!"
"I'm surprised you weren't warned about this," Orlaton said with a hint of a sneer on his face.
"Well, I think it was something of a last minute decision," I mumbled. Had Liliana tricked us or had she not known this would happen?
"What can be done about it?" Vale demanded.
"I would have said nothing, except," Orlaton said, clearly relishing the drama he was creating, "this is no ordinary case of possession thanks to your multiple forms. If you exorcise the demon, it may also lift the curse."
"This is definitely no ordinary possession," Vale said dryly. "The person who did this to me had intended something else."
"Magickal mistakes lead to the downfall of so many," Orlaton lamented, though his smirk suggested that other peoples' errors only made him feel better about his own skills, whatever they might be.
"We're all agreed that we need an exorcism and we need you to do it, Orlaton," I told him firmly. "You said you'd help, so here's your chance to impress us."
He actually tsked, like an actor in a British period drama. "Impressing you, Miss Moody, will hardly affect my day nor my value to the magickal community."
"Is this kid for real?" Vale muttered to me.
I pretended I hadn't heard him and focused on Orlaton. "Just tell us what you need to get this done." I pointed at the imaginary watch on my wrist. "The sun's coming up in a few hours and I have a hunch this isn't a snap your fingers and it's done sort of thing."
"Hardly."
Orlaton turned and disappeared into an aisle of books. I crossed my fingers that he was looking up books he might need and hadn't simply walked away to watch TV.
No, he'd be too snobby for TV. He'd be the type to spend hours cataloging the larval stages of the tsetse fly.
He returned less than a minute later, carrying a thick book bound in red leather. Its corners were frayed and the edges of the pages were dark and shiny from use. Either it was a dictionary or it was a reference book on demons.
"Knowledge of the specific demon inside you will be helpful," Orlaton said, his tone droll, as he stopped in front of Vale and began thumbing through the red book. "Also," he added almost as an afterthought, "I need your Name."
Vale's eyes glittered and a thin smile curled his lips. "I'm not telling you my Name."
Orlaton raised his head, all wide-eyed innocence. "Then how will I know you truly are the victim in this instance? How will I know beyond a shad
ow of a doubt that you're not here to mislead Miss Moody and myself?"
The young occultist took a hasty step backward when Vale advanced on him. "You'll just have to trust me," Vale growled softly.
I didn't see this scene ending well so I put a hand on Vale's shoulder to stop him.
"I'll vouch for him," I told Orlaton. "He's not in cahoots with this demon. He wants it banished just as much—no, more—than we do."
Orlaton sniffed and raised his chin, trying to appear unruffled. He bent over the red book again. "Then I'll need to know which demon possesses you."
"Isn't it enough to know that it's a demon?" I asked, painfully conscious of the time we were spending not performing an exorcism.
"I'll need its Name, Miss Moody, so I can determine if it is ruled by an elemental or a compass direction. If it travels alone or if it commands subordinate spirits. Some demons, Miss Moody, only manifest at specific times of the day. Others can only be summoned on certain days of the week. Still others—"
"Aglasis."
Orlaton and I looked to Vale in surprise. His mouth was downturned, as though he'd just spat out something disgusting. "It told me once, to try to intimidate me."
With narrowed eyes, Orlaton consulted the pages of the red book. "If you had known who Aglasis is, you would have been suitably intimidated, gargoyle." His finger stopped on an entry in the book. "Aglasis is a high-ranking demon with the ability to subvert distances, making them longer or shorter during travel as it sees fit."
"What, so Vagasso needed a demon to get him to New York in a hurry?"
Orlaton flicked me a brief glare. "That is only one of its powers. More likely Aglasis was chosen because upon command it will destroy the enemies of whoever has summoned it." He shut the book with a sharp snap. "You said Vagasso. That is not a true Name."
"Probably not. He's not a demon, but he's something super powerful." I shivered. "You think you could find him in one of your books?"