by Ryan Hill
And it wasn’t. Until I decided it was.
“I don’t think a security guard of your stature has the authority to make us leave.”
“What’d you say?” Schaefer asked.
“Your badge is fake. Are your ears, as well?”
Sam laid a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t.”
I shrugged her off. I’d had it with everyone dictating things to me. Who I could bang. What I had to do. It made me sick. This was not the life of a rogue. I walked away from Hell for the chance to go my own way. Do what I wanted. Now I was forced into this ridiculous situation, and with Lucifer as my witness, I was going to handle it my way.
“Step out of the car.” Schaefer laid a hand on his holstered Taser. “I won’t ask again.”
“Can you ask me again?” I used my finger to lean my ear in his direction. “I couldn’t hear you.”
Schaefer pulled out the Taser. “You have until three.”
Pfft. Like electricity could hurt me. I’ve been boiled in a vat of acid. I doubted a Taser would register as anything beyond a mild tickle.
“You have until one.” I extended my middle finger.
Schaefer squeezed the Taser’s trigger and the two electrodes shot out, latching onto my face. An electrical current of fifty thousand volts entered my body. I’d experienced so much torture in my existence, I genuinely thought the Taser wouldn’t hurt. I figured I’d laugh at this fake cop, brush off the electrodes, and, if time permitted, snap his neck.
It takes a big ex-demon to admit failure, and I was wrong. So, so wrong.
The tasing was brutal. Like a million needles stabbing me all over. My brain rippled and I lost control of my body as it tightened like a noose, then jerked around. It was terrible. I wouldn’t put it on the same level of torture techniques as being slowly melted in a bucket of holy water or a good, old-fashioned disembowelment and castration, but the tasing wasn’t pleasant in the least.
Finally, Schaefer relaxed his finger on the Taser’s trigger. But the after-effects of getting fifty-thousand volts shot through me lingered, making it difficult to move. Schaefer grinned like a mad man, like he’d gotten off on the tasing. It wouldn’t have surprised me.
“That was awesome,” Duffy said. “Do it again.”
I tried to laugh. I couldn’t.
Sam was horrified. “What right do you have?”
The door opened, then, and Schaefer dragged me out of the SUV, letting me crash onto the ground. I’d regained enough movement to break the fall with my hands. I hoped that was enough to keep my suit from getting damaged. I mustered up all the energy I could to speak.
“Po … police brutality,” I said. “I’ll have … your … badge, rent-a-cop.”
“Like Hell you will.” Schaefer put a knee into my spine, and then the clown pulled my hands behind me and bound them in plastic cuffs.
“Stop it.” Sam rushed to my side. “He didn’t do anything.”
“I’m telling the teacher on you,” I said.
Schaefer grabbed my hair and each perfect follicle screamed in hot, scolding pain as I was pulled to my feet.
“Get your pretty little ass back in the car,” Schaefer told Sam, as if he were laying down the law. “Or I’ll drag it down to county with your boyfriend here.”
“I bet your pillow talk is fantastic,” I said through gritted teeth.
“You can’t arrest him,” Sam said.
“That’s right,” I said with a laugh. “You’re nothing but a poor man’s security guard. Do they pay you more than minimum wage?”
“You have the right to remain silent.” Schaefer slammed me up against the side of the Benz. “And if you’re smart, you’ll stay silent.”
He started patting me down. I wanted to snap the cuffs and gouge his eyeballs out, but this guy wasn’t worth the trouble. Maybe if Hell still had my back; but the rogue’s existence was a solitary existence, meaning I had to play things a little smarter.
“What do you want me to do about John?” Sam asked. “He still thinks we’re taking him home.”
Sam looked at Schaefer as she spoke, but it was me she was talking to. The untied shoe of an angel wanted to know if I thought she and Duffy should keep waiting for Miss Adams. I’d have said yes, but I didn’t trust her. She was too capable of making a mistake—and somehow blowing her cover. If that happened, she would find herself knee-deep in Mop Tops. Without me around, that wouldn’t end well.
“Text him,” I said. “Tell him sorry, but he’s riding the bus today.”
“Are you sure?” Sam asked. “I can stick around. It’s not a problem.”
“I’m sure.”
“Stop talking,” Schaefer said, grabbing my neck and turning me around.
“In a minute,” I said. “Call my lawyer. His card is in the glove compartment.”
Sam’s upper lip curled. “You have a lawyer?”
“Doesn’t everyone?”
I didn’t mind being thrown in lockup. It’s never bothered me. A normal person would probably quiver and wet themselves at the idea of sitting in a caged room full of criminals, but not me. I felt at home amongst these sinners. It’d also be a nice break from Sam and Duffy, who hopefully hadn’t screwed everything up.
Schaefer shoved me in one of the holding cells and slammed the door behind me, locking it with a sly grin. A scattered mix of lowlifes scowled at me.
I held out my arms. “My people.”
“Shut the fuck up,” said a black man with a bulls-eye tattoo on top of his shiny, bald, head.
A dirty man with stringy brown hair and a white shirt complete with yellow armpit stains got in my face. “Nice suit.”
“I know,” I said.
The man was missing half his teeth. “My dad wore a suit like that the day I choked him until his eyes turned purple.”
“How’d that work out for you, considering you’re in here now?”
“Only one of us is still breathing.”
“Pretty big sin, killing dear old Dad.” I took a seat on one of the cell’s rusted metal benches, then leaned back and stretched, resting my head against my hands. I couldn’t help Sam until I made bail, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have fun in the meantime. “Play your cards right and I’ll tell you who to befriend when you get to the Seventh Circle.”
“What’d you say?” the dirty man asked.
“Nothing.”
I closed my eyes. Ahh. Anger. Hate. Daddy issues. It was great getting back in the middle of it. I’d missed it. The existence of a rogue had its perks and all, but surrounding myself with sin was like putting on a crisp, new suit. Few things compared.
I remembered an old game I liked to play in jail. It was called, Guess who will try to steal the clothes off my back. In the last hundred years alone, I’ve been imprisoned thirty or forty times. Some ruffian, roundabout, whatever, always tried to steal my clothes, since they cost more than whatever money the other prisoners earned put together. I’d also do a fair bit of instigating, for the fun of it. It wouldn’t be the dirty guy; I wasn’t sure the Daddy problems would seal the deal. Something told me a guy with pit stains that deep a yellow on his shirt preferred to handle things behind closed doors.
The man with the bulls-eye captured my attention. He sat with his hands resting under his chin and his feet bobbing up and down, like he was waiting for a nurse to call him back to see a doctor. Things didn’t feel quite right with this guy.
A tattoo like that bulls-eye felt too obvious. He wanted to seem tough without showing his toughness. It was the ones who didn’t flaunt their stones that were most dangerous. Antagonizing Bulls-Eye would only reveal the weenie within. That led me to contestant number three. The last guy in the cell.
He moved around the cell, keeping his back to me. His sun-battered neck and green-stained clothes, as well as his thickly-muscled frame, told me he had some sort of landscaping job to make ends meet. He turned to face me, disheveled dark-blonde hair hanging down each side of his forehead. The man squee
zed his hands into fists, as if I needed to notice them. His knuckles were dotted with red and purple marks.
We have a winner.
The Lawnmower Man stopped pacing. Hands at his sides, he looked down at me. The smell of cut grass and gasoline seeped into my lungs. I looked up at him with a sheepish look in my eyes, hoping it’d give him the false confidence that he had the upper hand.
“Fancy suit you got there.” His day-old beer breath poisoned my nostrils.
“Not my fanciest.” I tugged at the lapel. “But I like it.”
“Think a fella like me could afford a fancy suit like that?”
That was my cue. It was on. I felt the kind of giddy anticipation that came when the lights went down, the curtains opened, and the show was ready to begin. The best part? Sam wasn’t around to chide me for indulging in my darker side.
“If you find a place that does layaway and your credit score is good enough, sure.”
The Lawnmower Man laughed. “I wasn’t thinkin’ ‘bout buyin’.”
“Wh … what were you thinking?” I wrapped my arms around my chest, shrinking into an intimidated ball of goo. I loved acting afraid. It made the next part that much more delicious.
The Lawnmower Man grabbed my throat, using all his strength to force me to my feet. I gagged, adding to the theatrics of it all. A few weak smacks to free myself, and I’d created the perfect illusion of a terrified human being. The Lawnmower Man half-smiled at my feeble attempts to break his grip.
“Tear his ass up,” Bulls-Eye said.
“Strip, boy,” Lawnmower Man said. “And maybe you’ll only walk out of here with a broken nose.”
He removed his hand and I fell on the bench, coughing and breathing as I rubbed my “sore” throat. Lawnmower Man clapped his hands together, then took hold of my hair, yanking my head against the wall. It didn’t hurt, but I didn’t appreciate someone that nasty touching my precious follicles.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Don’t got all day.”
“I don’t either.” I grinned, catching Lawnmower Man a little off guard, then patted my suit down as I stood and pulled the shirt’s cuffs out past the jacket. “This is one of my favorite suits, and you didn’t ask nicely. You didn’t even say the magic word, you Godless heathen.”
“I won’t take no mouth from some pretty boy like you.”
Lawnmower Man swung a fist toward my beautiful face, but I grabbed the fist and held it in place, giving this buffoon a chance to realize how much trouble he’d stumbled into. Lawnmower Man tried to wrestle his fist free. It was adorable. He was strong, but not ex-demon strong. I squeezed his fist, the bones snapping and giving way. I enjoyed the sight of his face turning into a strawberry as the pain took hold. He attempted to stay on his feet, but it was futile, and I watched with glee as his knees gave out and he fell to the floor.
I tried to keep from bouncing and giggling. Oh, how I loved getting the better of bullies when it suited me. The feeling of power and control was like confetti in my veins. I wanted to explode in a fireball of excitement, burning everything within a one-mile radius.
“Let me go,” Lawnmower Man whined. “You preppy bastard.”
“Is that the best idea, mouthing off to the one that broke your hand?”
I wanted to make an example of this guy, teach him a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget. My accomplice was going to be the yellow-stained and rusted—at least it looked like rust—toilet in the corner. I dragged Lawnmower Man by his broken hand to the toilet. Much as I didn’t want to touch the guy’s hair, considering how greasy it was, I swallowed my pride and took hold of it, keeping his face hovering over the toilet long enough for the stench of whoever last destroyed it with their bowels to fester and corrupt his innards. Then I forced his face in the toilet, the water suffocating his screams.
“Take it in,” I said. “Gobble up that prison poo water like your life depended on it.”
“Knock it off.” Schaefer banged his nightstick against the bars.
I turned to look at the cop and let go of Lawnmower Man, enjoying the sound of his body crumbling to the floor. He gasped, trying to catch his breath. Then he crawled back up to the toilet and threw up.
At Carnegie Hall, it would’ve gotten a standing ovation.
“You made bail.” Schaefer waved me forward. “Come on.”
“Well, I had a lovely time with you gents.” I flicked my hands in the air, trying to get the prison poo water off. “We should do it again sometime.”
Even Bulls-Eye was too afraid to say anything as I walked out of the cell.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Calling on a Lady? At This Hour?
“Smooth” Lou Grigson was the best lawyer money could buy, at least in North Carolina. The man worked miracles. I discovered him fresh out of law school, scratching and clawing to build a name for himself in the personal injury game. Some of my comrades and I had helped him win a class action lawsuit involving a late-model Ford that was under recall, a faulty crosswalk for the blind, and a cup of cold coffee. The victory shot Lou up the ranks of ambulance chasers, earning him a reputation as one of the smoothest, greasiest lawyers in the area, all before age thirty.
Lou could argue his way out of anything. The cops once walked in on a man standing over his wife’s body, smoking gun in hand, and he still managed to snag a not guilty verdict. His popularity exploded, and before long even rich people were complaining about his hourly rates. Everything about him was smooth, from his naturally slicked back graying hair all the way down to his Salvatore Ferragamo shoes. He had a spit-shine to his presence as he stood in the police lobby, typing away on his cell phone, wearing a gorgeous charcoal suit with thin white stripes.
I shook his hand, and some of his shine wore off onto my skin. Too smooth.
“You’re still the only person I know that can out dress me,” I said.
“You seem surprised.” Even his voice had a velvety texture. It had the perfect amount of gravel to be hypnotic, but not enough to sound like he had smoker’s lung. If Lou was a jazz singer, my head would have exploded from the epic sounds escaping his lungs.
“That’s a blessed fine suit,” I said. “New York?”
“London.”
“Fancy.”
“My first one from across the pond. I love it. Fits like a glove, gives me a spring in my step. I feel like I can conquer the world.”
I laughed to myself. “Sounds like you’re talking about sex.”
“Is there really any difference between the two?”
Yep. Lou was one of the few people that could talk to me on my level. “Thanks for busting me out.”
“Thank your lady friend,” he said. “She’s the one who called. That isn’t like you, though. You goin’ soft?”
He held the door open for me and we stepped outside, then walked down the concrete steps.
“She’s not my lady friend,” I said. “Just someone I work with.”
“Right.”
When we reached the bottom of the steps, Lou stopped and held up his hand. Was I about to get a lecture?
“Before we go any further, I want you to know that since you’re now an … independent contractor, your usual retainer doesn’t apply anymore. And don’t even think about asking for a hometown discount.”
Great. I’d sort of hoped I’d fall through the cracks with Hell’s bean counters and keep a couple of benefits, like free representation from the best lawyer in a thousand-mile radius, but no luck. I should’ve known Lucifer would make sure I was erased from the system as quickly as possible. He wouldn’t do me any favors unless I gave him something in return. I’d been on the other end of that deal too many times to even think about it.
“I’m good for it,” I said. “But I don’t want to see you spent a hundred billable hours on something that shouldn’t take more than a couple.”
Lou held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”
Liar.
I saw Sam sitting in the driver’s seat of my car in th
e parking lot outside the station. She must not have gone home to switch over to her Mercedes. Duffy was in the back, playing a game on the almost-angel’s phone. I bid adieu to Lou and walked toward them. Sam got out and tossed me the keys. She looked relieved to see me.
“So?” she asked. “How was jail?”
“Great,” I said, sliding into the driver’s seat.
She gave me a double take.
“Great?”
“Of course,” I said. “I don’t mind being in jail.”
She shook her head, shocked at my admission. “I should’ve known.”
“It’s like a day at the spa.”
She tsked. “Why didn’t you let us follow Miss Adams?”
“And if you’d gotten into trouble as well, who would bail you out?” I rolled my eyes. “Accidental phrasing.”
“Duffy and I would’ve been fine without you.”
Hmpf. “Says you.”
“Says us,” Duffy said.
“We can take care of ourselves,” Sam said.
“Maybe,” I said. “I didn’t think it was smart to risk it.”
Wait.
Why did I care if following Miss Adams without me was risky? What did it matter to me if Sam got in trouble?
Oh no. Dear Lucifer below, no.
Was this … empathy I felt? Sympathy? Any one of those emotions that end in pathy? I felt sick to my stomach. Was I becoming goo–
No. I refused to finish the thought. I was Bartholomew. Rogue extraordinaire. I was not the opposite of bad.
“Are you okay?” Sam asked. “You look worried.”
“I’m fine.” I shook my head, forcing myself to extinguish the horrifying idea that I was anything except wicked. “Not looking forward to doing this all over again tomorrow.”