Strangers in the Night

by E M. Jeanmougin

  Alan looked away from him as if he hadn’t spoken at all, back to Crimson. “Well, next time you go on a vacation, you should let me know.” His fingers curled through the ends of Crimson’s hair, a lock twisted around the pointer finger, a gentle tug, not subtle. Jasper wanted to clear his throat or yell at him to fuck off, but he bit his tongue, glaring down with pale eyes at the sticky drink menu in front of him. “People have been asking about you,” added Alan.

  Across the table, Crimson stiffened slightly, the friendly, flirtatious smile wiping itself clean off his face. He and Jasper exchanged a glance.

  “People?” asked Jasper. “What people?”

  Alan laid a finger aside his chin and pantomimed being deep in thought. He did a poor job of it. Probably because he’d never had a deep thought in his entire existence. “Hmm… what was that guy’s name? I just can’t seem to remember. You know how forgetful I am.”

  “Alan darling.” Crimson turned his face back towards his, leaning in close. “I have half a pound of hallucinistem in my pocket. If you want me to share, you’d better get to remembering.”

  Alan perked visibly. “An incubus. Half-breed. Brown hair. Big puppy-dog eyes.” He grinned at Crimson. “He almost wore me out.”

  Crimson was not smiling. “His name?”

  “It was Shane, I think.”

  The shot glass in Crimson’s hand exploded. “Shane Robinson?” he asked through gritted teeth. Beside Jasper, Abby slowly reached for a twinkling, liquor-soaked shard and held it up to the lamp overhead.

  “Yeah, maybe,” agreed Alan, oblivious to the fact that Crimson looked like he was about to flip the whole booth over. “I don’t really deal in last names, if you know what I mean. Speaking of, I hope you plan on sharing more than just drugs with me.”

  Abby rotated the shard of glass this way and that. A bead of blood began to develop on the pad of her thumb, but she seemed not to notice as she watched the iridescent patterns twinkle through the curved glass. “Sleepover,” she said dreamily.

  “Great idea, Abs,” said Alan, and Jasper quickly looked at Crimson, glaring with every muscle in his face.

  Crimson wasn’t paying any attention to him though. He was mopping up the spilled drink with a napkin, barely looking at anyone, a frown on his mouth, in his eyes, between his brows.

  “Can we crash at yours tonight?” Alan’s hooded eyes promised things Jasper didn’t even want to think about. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

  This finally drew the werespider’s attention. “You’d better,” said Crimson, snapping out of the momentary fugue the name brought. His arm sank down around the other demon’s shoulders, and Jasper felt a hot flare of anger. This was utter bullshit. He did not want to spend the rest of his night watching this idiot werewolf drool all over Crimson while his idiot sister sat around doing and saying weird, stupid shit.

  “Let’s go now. This place is lame.” Alan climbed over the werespider’s lap, out of the booth, pausing on his way to rub himself all over Crimson. His ass jostled the table, spilling some of Jasper’s beer.

  “Actually,” Jasper said loudly after the display was over, “we came here for dinner. And then I think we’ve got plans. Right, Crimson?”

  The werespider slid out of the booth. He shrugged. “No plans,” he said, and in that second Jasper hated him. “Can’t you eat something at home?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll see you later, then. You’ve got a key.”

  “Abs, you coming?” Alan plucked the shard of glass from her fingers and tossed it to the side, pausing to wipe the blood off her small hand with the hem of his stupid mesh T-shirt. “Or do you want to stay here for a bit?”

  The last thing Jasper wanted was to be left alone at the bar with Abby. The werewolf spoke up before him. “I’ll stay with Jasper.” Short of pushing her out of the booth or climbing over the table, he was stuck.

  Alan kissed the top of her head. “Sounds cool to me.” He linked fingers with Crimson, who drew him to his side, and then they were gone. Crimson only paused long enough to speak to the waitress, indicating Jasper and Abby’s table.

  The two of them were barely out the door when Jasper’s stomach clenched with a strange sensation he had not felt before, distracting him from his white-hot anger. The feeling was demonic in origin, he knew that for certain, but it was unusual. Warmer, lighter, tingly almost.

  He looked over the back of the booth.

  A wiry man in his mid to late twenties was standing at the bar, leaning on his elbow with his hip rested against the stool behind him. He was dressed in a ’50s-style flight jacket, brown fur trim on the collar and half a dozen patches sewn on the sleeves and breast, some of them military in nature, most not. The jacket was slightly too large for its wearer, both too long in the hem and wide in the chest. It fell almost to the middle of his thigh and looked like it would swallow him up. Jasper had a strange feeling that he had seen him somewhere before but could not think of where.

  He was speaking to the waitress; his hand lay over hers. A thick-banded ring, inlaid with a large ruby—too large, in fact, to be real—was on the pinkie of his left hand. He followed a gesture the waitress made and then, lifting his eyebrows, took off his glasses, polished the lenses on the hem of his shirt, and looked right at him and Abby.

  Jasper turned quickly and sank low in the booth. Great. What new hell was this?

  “Abby,” he hissed, “stop staring.”

  The little werewolf had followed his gaze, but she did not have the sense of propriety to hide the fact that she was looking. “Shadow games,” she muttered vaguely, and he bit his lip to keep from snapping at her to shut up.

  It was too late anyway. The man was on his way over to their booth. Jasper suddenly became very interested in an old-timey painting of dogs playing poker that was situated on the wall just above their table. There was the sound of knuckles rapping softly on wood. He thought about pretending not to have heard, but fucking Abby was still staring.

  He looked at the demon. He had a thin, angular face, accentuated by a short goatee, minus the mustache. On the side of his throat, the head of a black cobra was poised with fangs flashing, its neck trailing down to disappear into the collar of his jacket. He saw where the tattoo ended; the snake’s tail curled around his wrist, over the back of his hand, tapering on his ring finger.

  He was cute. Not in the traditional perfect-skin, perfect-hair, perfect-face sort of way, but in a more alternative way, like John Lennon or Brandon Boyd. He leaned on their table, palms flat, eyes fixed on Jasper. “Howdy.”

  “Hi,” said Jasper.

  “Can I join you?”

  “Uh…” said Jasper, but it wasn’t really a question.

  The man slid into the booth opposite them. Crimson had left the bottle of Patron on the table. The man picked it up, read the label, then unscrewed the cap and took a deep swig.

  “Can we… help you?”

  The man brought the bottle away from his lips, grinning with a hint of mischief. “I hear tell you two might be able to help me locate a friend of mine.” Still holding the bottle, he pointed at Abby with his pinkie. “Don’t I know you?”

  She stared at him blankly.

  He nodded. “I’d recognize those big vacant peepers anywhere. You’re Abby. And that must make you…” He paused. “Do you work with Alan or something?”

  “Definitely not.” He would have vomited the words if he could have.

  “That’s too bad,” grunted the man. Jasper was sure he had seen him before. Something about his smile and that tattoo. “Face like that, you could retire before you were thirty.”

  Jasper rolled his eyes. He was beginning to understand why women hated men so much. “Who are you?”

  The man reached across the table, offering him his hand. Jasper started to reach for it, but suddenly, faster than he had ever seen her move, Abby grabbed his wrist and forced his palm flat down on the table. She looked at him, wide-eyed, and shook her head once, hard. �
��No touching.”

  The man’s amicable expression faded into a heavy scowl. “You’re a clever little mutt, ain’tcha?”

  “Abby’s not a mutt,” said Jasper. She wasn’t clever either, but no need to split hairs. “Now, answer my question.”

  He took another swig from the bottle. “The name’s Shane.”

  Jasper had started to expect as much, so his expression did not reflect the anxious uncertainty he felt. “What’s your friend’s name?”

  Shane snorted. “That’d depend on the day of the week, probably.” He leaned a little closer, tapping the label on the front of the bottle. “I know he was here. Did he go back to his house? Or did he go running off with fuckin’ Marmaduke?”

  A little of both, actually, thought Jasper, but did not say. “I don’t know whom you’re talking about,” he said instead. Crimson obviously didn’t like the guy, but he hadn’t taken the time to say why, or what Jasper might be expected to do should he encounter him. “But I think you should go.”

  Shane drummed his ring against the table. Then he smiled widely. It reminded him of the way Crimson would sometimes smile and smile and smile, right until he lost his fucking mind and went ballistic on someone. “Alright.” He started to get up. Stopped. “But if you see Crimson anytime soon. Say… tonight, could you ask him to meet me here? Saturday, eight p.m.”

  “If you know where your imaginary friend lives, why don’t you just go tell him yourself?”

  Shane laughed. “In his house? You insane? That place’s a death trap.” It was the laugh that finally gave him away, the way he threw his head back, the snake tattoo rearing as if to strike. Jasper remembered sitting in Charlie’s office, looking through the small stack of old photos, lingering on a group image. It seemed so long ago. “Do I look like the stupid teenager in a horror movie to you?”

  Jasper said nothing. As tempting as it was to bicker with the guy, it was obvious he shouldn’t goad him on. He pressed his lips together, sending a scowl his way.

  “Alright,” said Shane. “I know when I’m not wanted. I’ll let you two alone.” Giving the waitress a wave, he walked towards the front of the bar. Jasper watched from the corner of his eye until he saw the door swing open and then fall closed. Then he flipped open his cell phone and started to dial Crimson’s number. The phone was all the way to his ear before he remembered he didn’t have any service.

  “Damn it. Abby, move.”

  #

  They were almost back to the house before he remembered he was pissed at Crimson, and then he was doubly pissed. He didn’t even get to eat. He stopped on the stoop, digging in his pocket for keys, but not before glancing around to make sure (for maybe the fortieth time) they weren’t being followed.

  Shane was nowhere in sight, and other than the small, relatively weak feeling of the werewolf beside him, and the small, equally weak feeling of the werewolf in the house, he didn’t sense any other demons. He had grown so accustomed to Crimson that his sense for him seemed to have become fatigued. It no longer reacted to the werespider with any sort of forewarning.

  He got the door unlocked and went inside. When he got to the stairs, he realized Abby was still just standing out on the porch, tick-tocking slightly in the wind like a broken pendulum. Swearing, he marched over to her, grabbed her hand, and dragged her inside, slamming the door as loudly as he could muster without breaking it off the hinges.

  The upper hallway had the lingering aroma of hallucinistem, a smell that could almost have been mistaken for cotton candy perfume if not for the slightly floral scent intermixed. He was in a frantic hurry, but when he reached the door to the attic, he stopped cold. The last thing he wanted to do was burst in the room while Crimson and Alan were still going at it. The very thought made his blood boil. Stupid Crimson. If he spent half as much time thinking with his brain as with his dick, he’d probably have cured cancer by now. And what sort of douchebag took his lover to the only livable room of what amounted to a shared studio apartment?

  A narrow beam of yellow light gleamed through the crack at the bottom of the door. He leaned a little closer, listening for any telltale noise. No sound came from the attic, but a voice behind him inquired curiously, “Did’ja forget how to see the door?”

  “Jesus fucking Christ!” He hated when he did that. He glowered at the werespider, who was half-dressed in only blue jeans, the belt still unbuckled, uppermost button popped open as if he’d just quickly thrown them on… or not quite gotten them off. About a foot to his right, a door was cracked, the room beyond dark. “You’re not in the attic,” said Jasper. He’d never seen Crimson go into any of the other rooms in the house except the bathroom, and then only to shower. Because of this, he just assumed they were veritable disaster areas, just like the rest of the house, and had avoided them for fear of falling through the decrepit floorboards or activating another trap that the spider assured him was waiting.

  Crimson leaned close, as if to tell him a secret. Then, in a conspiratorial whisper: “This might surprise you, but Alan’s not really very picky.” He dropped the voice, straightening up with a shrug. “Neither am I, come to think of it.”

  “Crimson,” Alan’s voice whined out of the room behind him. “What is it?”

  “Just Jazz trying to get himself shot in the face,” Crimson called back. Belatedly, Jasper saw the werespider was holding one of his revolvers. Maybe he saw the way Jasper looked at it, because he laughed weakly. “Seriously, man, don’t go around kicking doors in and shit. I am way, way too high for that.”

  “Shut up,” said Jasper. “I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m a little busy. Why don’t you and Abby go start a movie or—”

  “Shut. Up,” repeated Jasper, loudly and firmly, and, for a wonder, Crimson did. “You know that guy you were talking about? The one who was looking for you? Shane?”

  “Dirty little rat,” muttered Crimson. “What about him?”

  “He was at Rascal’s. I just saw him.”

  Crimson took a step back, leery. “Gross. He didn’t touch you, did he?” That was a bizarre question, made more bizarre by the harsh, angry way it was posed.

  “No,” replied Jasper. “But he did act extra special super weird. Sort of like how you’re acting right now. There something you want to tell me?”

  “Not really,” said Crimson. “What did he say?”

  “He wants you to meet him at Rascal’s. Saturday. Eight o’clock.”

  Crimson was silent for a long, drawn moment, digesting the information with whatever thinking capacity the drugs left him with. “I’m gonna rip his fuckin’ head off.” He shoved past Jasper, tore open the attic door, and went clambering up the stairs. This spilled additional light into the hallway, just enough for Jasper to get a regrettably good look at Alan as he came staggering out of the spare room.

  “Christ, what’s taking so long?” He would have been naked if not for Crimson’s jacket. His arms were folded over his chest, holding the front shut but not, it seemed, all that intentionally. He walked over to the foot of the steps and yelled up them, “Y’know, some people pay really good money to fuck me.”

  Crimson came jogging back down the steps, pulling on a pair of black leather gloves as he went. “I won’t be gone long.” He stopped at the bottom of the steps and laid a kiss at the corner of Alan’s mouth. He’d managed to get his pants the rest of the way on and put on a fresh shirt, long-sleeved. “It should only take… I don’t know… an hour? Maybe two…”

  Alan was clearly completely unaware of what was happening. To be fair, Jasper didn’t really understand either. “What’re the gloves for?”

  “They’re to help me strangle Shane,” said Crimson matter-of-factly.

  Alan stared at them dizzily. “Is he into leather?”

  Crimson considered. “Yeah, but that’s not why I need them.”

  “You can’t touch him.” Jasper understood. Incubi were uncommon in North America, often preferring more arid climates. The history of th
e species was dense, often confused with propagated folklore, and rarely with any sort of consistency. Jasper had learned about them in school, but knowledge that went unused was often forgotten. “Why?”

  “He’s a fuckin’ incubus,” spit Crimson. “He secretes like… LSD.” Now that it was said aloud, Jasper remembered this about them too. It was never something he troubled himself with, however. If a vampire’s gaze could not affect him, and a werespider’s pheromones were rendered null, he always assumed the same would apply when it came to other species. “Gets in your pores,” continued Crimson in a rapid, distracted voice. “Fucks you up. The saliva’s worse. Might as well be crack cocaine. One minute you’re about to hurl him off the Empire State Building. Then he catches you in a kiss and next you know you’re like ‘oh, Shane, I forgive you. Let’s adopt three cats and move to Miami fuckin’ Beach.’” A quell of surprised silence met him, and he realized he had spoken aloud. He looked from one face to the next, looked away. “I gotta go.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Jasper. He didn’t want to be stuck here with the werewolves. Alan was a nightmare, and while he didn’t exactly loathe Abby (as annoying as she was), he didn’t like her either. Besides, the werespider was clearly in no state of mind to be picking a fight with anyone. His eyes were glowing red, as they always did when he was angry, but the irises were paper-thin slivers, barely showing around the swollen black pupils and hard to differentiate from the bloodshot whites. “Or… better idea… maybe you don’t go while you’re high out of your mind. How about that?”

  “Yeah!” agreed Alan, grabbing his arm. “Stay here and be high with me. That’ll be way more fun.”

  “I told you, I’m coming right back,” repeated Crimson, angrily now.

  “Unless he catches you in a kiss,” said Jasper. “And then you get to move to Miami Beach. What are you going to name your cats?”

  “Shane got to name all of them, and he took them when we broke up,” burst Crimson. He rubbed two fingers across his brow, thumb kneading his temple, and then raked his hand back through his hair, tugging a few locks down into his face, the heel of his palm pressed to his forehead. “Gods, I hate him so much.”