by Мишель Роуэн
“Hey Val,” Becky greeted her with a smile. “Good to see you. What’s up?”
Val mirrored her smile, though it felt very forced. “Going somewhere?”
“Yeah, the car’s here to take us to the airport. We’re off to Disneyland at her majesty’s command. As if she hasn’t already been there twice this year. That little girl is crazy. They honestly don’t pay me enough for this job.”
Val let out a long sigh of relief. Talk about timing! Another few minutes and she would have been too late. “Listen, Becky. I need five minutes with Seraphina before you leave.”
“Sorry, no can do.”
“What?” Val’s entire body tensed up. “It’s really important or I wouldn’t ask. I know she’s very busy. I get it. But, this is a matter of life and death. To put it extremely mildly.”
“Valerie, melodrama doesn’t suit you. I should know. I get melodrama nine hours a day from her majesty and her majesty’s mother. Now I’m going to get melodrama twenty-four seven for a week while we’re at the so-called happiest place on earth. Somebody just shoot me now and put me out of my misery.”
“Just five minutes. Please Becky. I will owe you one. I’ll even go out with your brother.” Val paused, thinking about the geeky amateur wizard who seemed to drool profusely whenever he saw her. “Probably. Maybe. I’ll consider going out with your brother. To a movie. Then straight home. Separately.”
Becky smiled again and it looked tired. “I would if I could, really. I’m not just trying to be difficult. It’s just that Seraphina and her mother already left.”
Val eyed the limo. “Then what . . . what is this for?”
“For me.”
Val gaped at her.
She shrugged. “Okay, it’s really for Fifi—” she indicated the Chihuahua —“but I get to go along for the ride.”
“She’s gone?”
“Sorry. Incommunicado. Besides, she can’t do any of her stuff unless she’s in person.”
Val burst into tears.
Becky looked stricken. “Oh . . . no, don’t cry.”
She took deep choking breaths while trying to compose herself. “I . . . don’t know . . . what to do.”
Becky patted Val’s shoulder. “I wish I could help.” She waited for Val to calm down, and then gave her a bright smile. “Listen, if what you need is really that urgent, you could always use Psychic Bob down the street next to the Movieland Wax Museum. Ten bucks a reading.”
Her grin widened. “I’m kidding, of course.”
Twenty minutes later, Val sat on the other side of a dirty crystal ball and Psychic Bob. She didn’t have a penny to her name after she’d paid the cab driver, so she had to force Reggie to do some rat tricks on the corner for spare change from the tourists. Made $12.51. She wasn’t sure who gave them the penny, though. That was just an insult.
She handed ten of their earnings over to Psychic Bob.
“So,” Psychic Bob said, his voice gruff and effeminate at the same time. He looked like a truck driver but sounded like he might know what wine would go best with beef bourguignonne. “What can I help you with today? Simple tarot card reading? Want to know when you’ll meet your true love? Career questions? Ask me anything, honey. I’m here to help.”
Val folded her hands and leaned over the table toward him. “I need you to channel an angel named Garry, assistant guardian of the gates to Heaven. And please hurry. This is a major emergency.”
He blinked. “Sweetie, if you have an emergency I have a phone in the back. You can call
911.”
“It’s not an emergency those people can help me with.”
“Garry, you say.”
“That’s right.”
“Guardian of the gates to Heaven.”
“Assistant guardian. Don’t try to make him sound more important than he is—his ego is big enough already. Really he’s just like a glorified receptionist. But I need to talk to him.”
She’d placed Reggie gently down on the tabletop and he lay down. He’d decided not to be a part of this conversation and that was probably for the best. Psychic Bob looked uncomfortable enough without having to deal with a talking rat.
He stared at her. Bob, not the rat. Then, without another word he got out his tarot cards and shuffled them. He laid them out in a cross pattern on the table, narrowly avoiding hitting
Reggie, who had to sidestep out of the way.
Psychic Bob nodded and looked up at her. “I see romance in your future. Great adventure and exciting times lay ahead for you.”
“Didn’t you hear me? I don’t want a card reading. I want you to channel Garry—”
“Assistant guardian to the gates of Heaven. Yeah, I heard you. But I think this is better. Don’t you want to know what your future holds?
Val sighed. “I already know what my future holds. Bad things if I don’t speak to Garry.”
“You paid ten dollars for a reading.”
“I don’t have time for a reading. Didn’t you hear me say that this is an emergency?”
Psychic Bob stood up and pointed at the door. “Go.”
“Pardon me?”
“Go,” he said with his teeth clenched. “I don’t have time for crazy people.”
“Crazy people?” Val exclaimed. “I am not crazy.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You must be. You come in here talking nonsense, carrying that flea-ridden creature—”
“Hey!” Reggie said.
Val coughed to cover the sound of Reggie’s protest. “Just listen to me. I’m not crazy. I’m a fallen angel who needs to talk to the assistant guardian of the gates to Heaven so I can prevent a demon from bringing about the end of the world. Do you hear me? The end of the world!
What sounds crazy about that?”
“All of it.”
“You’re a fallen angel?” Reggie said. “You didn’t tell me that.”
Val sighed. “When we first met I told you I was from Heaven.”
“So you’re trying to tell me that that’s definitely not a strip club?”
“Did the rat just talk?” Bob asked.
“Yeah, but he’s not really a . . . oh, never mind. I don’t have time for this. I need to find that demon. Look, I need a psychic. A good psychic to help me out here. I can’t do this by myself.”
“What gives you the impression that I’m a psychic?” Psychic Bob asked.
“Uh . . . your name. Your storefront. The crystal ball and tarot cards on your table.”
“Oh, those . . . those are just things. Look”—he felt under the table and pulled out a book, Tarot Cards: The Easy Way!—“I’m faking it. I’ll admit it. I’m a big, fat fake. It’s good money from the tourists and I’m currently between acting gigs. So sue me.”
“You’re a fake?”
He scrambled in his pockets to give Val back her money. “Take this, go somewhere else. We can just pretend this never happened. You don’t tell anybody that I’m a fraud, and I don’t tell anybody that you’re completely insane. Deal?”
“I’m not insane.”
“Honey, listen to yourself. I don’t know what happened to you that you believe all of this, but angels don’t really exist. Demons definitely don’t exist. And, to be quite frank with you, all psychics are frauds. The world is a dull, normal, nonmagical place, and that’s exactly how I want it to stay.”
“Dull and normal?” Val sputtered, then pointed at Reggie. “Then how do you explain him, huh? A talking rat? Say something, Reggie.”
Reggie blinked at her. “Squeak.”
“Oh, that’s just great. Fine, I’ll figure it out on my own.” She stood up from the table. “But when the world ends, just remember you’ll only have yourself to blame.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Psychic Bob said. “Take care now. Buh-bye.”
Val grabbed Reggie off the table and squeezed him hard enough that he let out another squeak sound, this time involuntarily. She left th
e store without another look back.
They stood on Clifton Hill, surrounded by the tourists who braved the early winter chill to check out the many wax museums and gift stores of Niagara Falls. Each and every one of them probably felt the same way about the world as Psychic-fraud Bob did. None of them would be any help to her, either.
“Now what are we supposed to do?”
“He wouldn’t have been able to help you, anyhow,” Reggie replied. “He said himself he was a big faker.”
“Oh, now you’re talking again.”
“Sorry I wasn’t up to playing the part of the singing and dancing rodent, but I think he would have shut down completely then. You know, I hate to admit it, but being a rat feels very natural to me.”
“I guess your outsides finally match your insides.”
“Maybe that’s true—hey . . . that’s not very nice.”
“Anyhow,” she said, trying to get back on topic, “I honestly don’t know what we’re supposed to do next.”
“So, you’re really an angel?”
“Fallen angel.”
“Fallen angel. Wow, Val, I can’t believe it.”
“It’s true. They kicked me out.”
“Why?”
She sighed. “Garry told me it was because of pride, but that doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Well, that is one of the seven deadly sins, you know.”
Val rolled her eyes. “Everyone’s an expert.” Then she frowned. “An expert. I need to find an expert. That’s it.”
Yeah, she needed to get Nathaniel to help her. From what she understood from Julian, they were not friends but they did know each other. He’d probably know where to find the other demon. And all she’d need to do to summon Nathaniel was probably just put her lips together and blow.
Key Largo. Oldies channel. She watched it one night last week when she couldn’t get to sleep.
No. She shook her head. No lips. No blowing. Not going to happen.
It had to be somebody else. Anybody but Nathaniel.
Come on, Val, she admonished herself. You’re going to let your personal feelings get in the way of potentially saving the world?
Actually, yes. Was that so wrong?
And on the subject of summoning demons, why couldn’t Val just summon Julian himself? Go straight to the source. Summon him, grab the key, and all was well with the world.
She frowned at the thought. Probably because the first thing Julian would do once he saw who’d summoned him was reach out and snap her spine. He seemed like a spine-snapping kind of guy.
There had to be another relatively injury-free way.
“We need to find a demon,” Val finally said out loud. “Somebody who knows where Julian might be.” She shook her head. “But how would I even go about that?”
“Go about what?”
“I need to figure out how to summon a demon.”
“Summon a demon to do what?” Reggie looked distracted. He was eyeing a nearby diner.
“I’m hungry. Do you think we could go get something to eat? I’m having a fierce craving for some cheese.”
Val gritted her teeth. “Summon a demon to help us find Julian, of course. And we need to hurry.”
“Oh, it’s too bad I’m not currently on speaking terms with Claire,” Reggie said absently.
“Demon-summoning was one of her hobbies.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Claire can summon demons?”
He looked at her. “She used to talk about it all the time. Of course I’d just ignore her thinking it was her cute little imagination at work. But now that I’ve seen what she’s capable of”—he sighed resignedly—“I’m thinking she might have been serious.”
“We need to go see her. Right now.”
His mouth dropped open, exposing his little yellow teeth. “No way.”
“Yes, way. We’re going to see her so she can help us.”
He shook his head emphatically. “Uh-uh. Nope. If she gets another chance in her current mood she’ll turn me into a dead rat.”
“I’ll protect you.”
“I’d feel more protected with a thousand miles separating us.”
“This isn’t open for discussion. We’re going. So try to act like a man and less like a rat about this, would you?”
“Squeak,” he said weakly.
The lunchtime line at McDonald’s was long, and it took nearly ten minutes to get to the front.
Claire was behind the till, and looked at Val and Reggie with anything but friendliness when they approached.
“You have a lot of nerve coming here.”
Val scanned the menu board. “I’d like a McChicken for me, and a regular cheeseburger for
Reggie, please. Hold the pickles.” She plunked down the money Psychic Bob had given back to her.
Claire narrowed her eyes. “Would you like fries with that?”
“Sure. Um, and a Diet Coke. Make it a combo.”
“Is this to go? I hope?”
“Claire, I need a favor from you. It’s an emergency or I wouldn’t ask. Time is of the essence.”
“Hmm, well isn’t this interesting? The woman who stole my boyfriend is asking me for a favor. Well, whatever the favor is, the answer is: screw you.”
Val leaned closer to her and lowered her voice. “I need you to summon a demon for me.”
She frowned. Then keyed in the food order and cashed it out.
“I can get off in fifteen minutes. Wait for me over there.” She pointed at the tables near the kids’ play area.
Well, Val thought. That was surprisingly easy.
They took the food tray—well, Val did—got a table, and chowed down while they waited impatiently for Claire.
She was more than fifteen minutes. More like twenty.
When she appeared, her coat was on, purse slung over her left shoulder. “Sorry. We had a fry emergency. I don’t want to go into details.”
“Promise?” Reggie squeaked.
Claire scowled at him and then looked at Val. “So you’re serious about this, right? Or are you just trying to make me look stupid?”
“I’m totally serious.”
“Then let’s go back to my place.”
Val stood and felt Reggie tense up. He was on her shoulder now, hiding partially behind her hair. It gave her the creeps a bit, but she was managing. Julian wasn’t the only one with a rat phobia. But she didn’t want to give the little guy more of a complex than he already had, besides, now that she knew rats were supposed to be “pure creatures” it should make her feel a bit different about the animal as a whole. At least Claire hadn’t turned him into a tarantula.
“You have to promise not to hurt Reggie before we go anywhere with you, Claire.”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you want me to help or not?”
“Of course I do. I just don’t want anything funny to happen. If you can do this to him, I don’t want to know what else you might be capable of.”
“To be quite honest with you, I didn’t mean to do that to him. It was an accident.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah, I meant to turn him into a pig.”
“Well, okay. Then let’s go.”
“That wasn’t a promise.” Reggie’s voice sounded strained. “She didn’t promise not to hurt me.”
Val frowned. “Maybe it would be better if you don’t talk for a while.”
Claire first took them to the grocery store down the street to pick up a few things.
“Are these used in the spell?” Val asked after a while, looking skeptically at her basket full of chocolate chip cookies, Häagen-Dazs ice cream, and a head of romaine lettuce.
“No. Why?”
It seemed as though no one understood what emergency meant. Val tried to be patient, but it was getting more difficult with each passing moment. Julian had given the distinct impression the key wouldn’t be used for a while, but how long did that give them? And what if they were too late? She clung to the hope that Claire wou
ld be able to help her. If she couldn’t, then Val was out of options.
“I have faith in you, Valerie,” Barlow had said to her. “I know you’ll do what’s right.”
He was counting on her. She couldn’t let him down.
She wouldn’t.
Chapter Nine
“So . . .” Val said after they arrived at Claire’s little basement apartment. She had just seen a cockroach the size of her palm peeking out at them from behind a cookie jar shaped like
Oscar the Grouch, but was trying very hard to ignore it. “Do you summon demons often?”
Not the most usual of small talk, but in Claire’s case it would have to do. She’d been giving them the cold shoulder all the way back in her rusty Jetta. Despite Val’s repeated assurances that she hadn’t touched the woman’s boyfriend, Claire refused to believe her. Reggie had taken Val’s words of advice and hadn’t said a single thing since leaving the restaurant. He looked a little green in the whiskers. Serves him right, Val thought. The cheeseburger he’d consumed had been nearly the size of Reggie’s entire body. Tail excluded.
Claire was still ignoring her while she thumbed through her rather extensive collection of magic books. Some were printed by current and legitimate presses: A Goddess’s Guide to
Love Spells and Casseroles, Be a Witch, or Just Look Like One, Curse Your Cheating Man—
He Deserves It! The latter looked quite worn.
On a lower shelf, however, were a few less designed covers and spines. They looked very old, weathered, and cracked. It’s through these books Claire was searching.
“Here it is,” she said finally, pulling out a very small black leather-bound book only slightly larger than her hand. “The silly thing hides from time to time.”
“What hides?”
“The book.”
Val glanced at the bookcase, then back at Claire. “The book hides? Seriously?”
There was no joking in the witch’s expression. “Yes.”
“Why would it do something like that?”
“Just to piss me off.”
“Ah.”
“So, what kind of demon do you want to summon? There’s tons of varieties. They’re kind of like insects, that way. There are some little harmless ones. Some cute colorful ones. Then there’s the big scary ones with sharp teeth.”