Charm City (The Demon Whisperer Book 1)

by Ash Krafton

  Tonight, he was on the clock.

  He weaved his way through the haute couture and the slick-styled posh. Mostly new university graduates living far beyond their means. None of these kids earned enough to wear the clothes or drive the cars they did, unless they'd made some sort of deal with the devil.

  And, as far as he knew, there was only bloke here who'd actually done just that.

  The bar looked like a chemistry laboratory. More of that aseptic feel, futuristic glass and colorful decanters, minus the white laboratory coats. It didn't feel like a place to slake a thirst or drown a sorrow.

  "Hey." He lifted his chin at the bartender to get his attention. And failed. The bartender passed him by three times without pausing or even making eye contact.

  Grumbling, Simon pulled a ten dollar bill out of his pocket and smoothed it out, folding it sharply lengthwise, before holding it like a flag between two fingers. This time, he didn't even need to make eye contact with the kid, who manifested in front of him within seconds.

  Of course. Money worked its own magic.

  "What will it be?"

  "Martini, squeaky clean. Oh, and hold the vermouth."

  The bartender rolled his eyes before reaching under the bar for the cheap gin.

  Thirty seconds later, Simon was staring at an oddly misshapen twist of glassware. Looking down the length of the bar, he noticed others drinking from similar vessels. What the hell am I supposed to do with this? I can't even figure out how to drink out of this fricken thing.

  Finally, he admitted defeat. He signaled to the bartender. "Can I get a glass?"

  With a sour look, the bartender reached under the bar. He popped a plain tumbler in front of him. "Would you like a straw?"

  Simon grinned and nodded. "Good one."

  He examined the garnish briefly before determining it was inedible, and tossed it onto the napkin before sloshing the gin into the glass.

  Seeing the bartender's disdain, he raised the glass in a mock toast. "Cheers."

  He raised the glass to his lips and paused. It wasn't the acrid pineyness of the booze that stopped him from drinking. A spike of metaphysical energy hit him like the bite of a bad grounding.

  The edges of his senses tingled, a prickling deep in his brain. He didn't even have to try to notice it. This was a part of himself that never shut off. It was always watchful, waiting.

  His gaze jerked to the side and he cocked his head before grimacing, his face awash in a cold humor.

  "All work and no play." Shaking his head, he clunked the glass down with a rueful smile. "Alright, pal. Let's have a look at you."

  With a kick against the bar, he slowly spun his barstool around. He slipped a lens out of his pocket and held it up in front of his eye and scanned the crowd.

  Through the scrying lens, the light scattered into rainbow streaks. Kind of like an infrared camera, except this didn't detect heat—it detected divine energy. Particularly, hell stain. Came in real handy when looking for the bad guys.

  As he surveyed the room, he noticed a figure near the wall, so much different than all the others. That figure glowed a dark, seething red, dripping heat.

  He lowered the lens to see an otherwise normal-looking guy, talking up a pretty brunette.

  Simon stowed the lens in his jacket pocket. "Righto, then. Time to crash his little party."

  He picked up his drink, centered himself, then wove his way through the crowd with a tipsy smile. Despite his cheerful blunders when he artfully bumped into this one and that, he never took his eyes off the guy.

  The guy leaned over the woman, his hand on the wall behind her. She played with the straw in her drink, obviously enthralled with him. Such intense conversation. How can they hear each other over the racket? And, he knew, she shouldn't want to hear him. Not if she had any idea what he was, or what his words could do.

  She raised up on her toes to whisper in his ear and slipped her hand around his neck. Over her shoulder, the kid's eyes flashed a sinister red glow.

  God help her. She didn't realize she was hooking up with a demon.

  No time to waste. Hell wasn't going to ruin another innocent girl. Not while he was still able to do something about it.

  He shot through the crowd like an arrow, slowing his last steps to an exaggerated stagger. Tripping over his feet, he wedged himself between the couple.

  "Ah, thought I smelled a party." He grinned and looped an arm around each of their necks. "Mind if I join?"

  With a huff, the woman flipped his arm off and pushed him back. Her touch was surprisingly gentle, considering the expression on her face. Her eyebrows were practically touching, though, she was so put out. "Why don't you get lost, buddy?"

  Simon swung his face close to hers, his voice low and steely. "You're the one who needs to skedaddle. I got business with my friend here."

  She pinched her lips, then took a deep breath. "He's not your friend."

  "And he really shouldn't be yours." Reaching into his side pocket, he pulled out a bundle of woven reeds, the center darkened by a metal charm that had been seared into it. St. Bridget's cross, with a touch of St. Michael for good measure.

  A measure well taken. The demon screamed at the sight of it and recoiled, temporarily losing control on its human guise. Its mouth stretched impossibly wide, teeth like wicked needles, eyes ablaze with red fury.

  Simon smiled a mean slant. Watching a demon writhe in agony did wonders for a guy's spirits.

  For as long as it lasted, anyway, which wasn't more than a few moments. Before he could utter the binding spell, the demon-possessed man broke and ran, deftly snaking through the crowd toward the exit.

  The woman looked stunned. Apparently she wasn't accustomed to being ditched. Poor girl. The first taste of disappointment was always a bitter one.

  "Well, can't say I didn't try." Simon stowed the cross, unwilling to waste any of its considerable power on the trivialities of the passing immoral. "No need to thank me, love."

  "Damn straight there isn't. I should throttle you." She glared at him a moment before pushing past him, sending him against the wall with a surprising amount of force.

  He stared after her, his jaw slacking. She was going after the bastard.

  "What in hell…?" He shook his head before scrambling to catch up. Some girls just couldn't take no for an answer.

  The streets were damp and noisy, car traffic in an endless stream in front of the popular club. Simon ignored the pedestrians, the line of people waiting to get in. Rounding the corner, he scanned the alley before stepping out of the safety of the streetlights into the shadows beyond. He extended his hands out, as if walking in the dark. Not that he worried about bumping into a wall or a dumpster—it was the spiritual dark he feared. Eyes half-closed, he let the sensitive part of his brain go wide open. Taking a stiff inhale, he lifted his chin.

  A trace of rancid smoke wound its way like a ribbon through the heavy air. The demon's wake.

  He followed the trail, deeper into the alley, the smell growing stronger. There, in a recessed doorway, he spied the couple in an embrace.

  The woman's back was to Simon, the only visible part of the demon his arms wrapped around her. Below the rolled-up sleeves and weight-room biceps, the flesh was marred, molten and gnarled, ending in hands that were blackened, scaled, and claw-tipped.

  Its face was hidden in the shadows. Over the woman's shoulder gleamed twin slits of baleful red.

  "Shit." Simon muttered as he assessed the demon's appearance. The human host was disappearing, little by little. Only a matter of time before it took full control. "Hey! You there!"

  The demon snarled. GO AWAY. A myriad of voices twisted the syllables into an unholy chorus.

  "Ugh." The woman half-turned to glance at Simon. "You again? Can't you see I'm busy?

  "Sure, you are." He popped thick matching rings onto his thumbs and spread his hands apart, stretching a glowing hum between his palms, collecting power that zapped and sparked around the odd silver c
ircles. The light quickly built to an opaque glow.

  "In the name of the Light, I draw thee." His gaze firmly on the demon's eyes, Simon chanted the binding spell. "In the name of the Light, I bind thee. In the name of the Light, I cast thee back into darkness. In the name of the Light, I—"

  The demon screamed in loathsome rage, the collection of voices reaching an ear-splitting pitch, but it could not look away from the exorcist who held it in thrall. It pushed the woman aside and stumbled forward, writhing in pain.

  Suddenly, the host hunched over, crunching tight against his knees, dropping to the ground. Tighter, tighter he folded himself, impossibly smaller, shrinking down until he imploded.

  The demon planed out and disappeared, taking the host with it. The power snap impacted Simon so hard he had to take a step back to brace himself. A very human scream echoed off the walls of the buildings, reverberating into the distance.

  "No, no, no, no!" Simon bit back a curse and rubbed a hand over the back of his head, ruffling his hair as he tried to massage away the ache in his brain. "That should have worked."

  He lifted his hands like antennae, hoping to catch the tail-end of the demon's wake. There was nothing. Not a damn thing. "Sorry 'bout that, sweetheart. Go on back to your clubbing. And for the love of all that's decent, stay away from that one."

  The woman stared at him, utterly agape. Probably not used to guys being all hands one minute and imploding into brimstone smoke the next. Well, she was still alive. She'd get over it.

  Or not.

  She rushed him and stuck with both hands flat on his chest, knocking him back a pace. "What are you doing?"

  "Protecting you from a certain end, that's what."

  "He was listening to me." She looked mad enough to spit. "I just about had him!"

  "You shouldn't have needed a second warning and you definitely shouldn't have gotten a second chance." He nosed into her, genuine steel in his eyes. "You just remember, sweetheart. Third time is always the charm—and you don't have the right charm to survive."

  For a moment, she looked like she wanted to hit him, hard.

  He merely turned aside and lit a cigarette. It wasn't merely a matter of dismissing her—turning his hips would protect his assets, the most likely target of a woman scorned.

  She put her hands up in a "whatever" gesture and left with a huff. Halfway to the sidewalk, she turned to yell over her shoulder. "Don't mess with things you don't understand."

  Of all the things—he just saved her sweet behind from a demon. A demon. Not some tanked-up pretty-boy college kid who had drunk himself past the God's-Gift-To-Woman stage and halfway to Bulletproof. A demon, with enough power to completely transform a mortal body. According to the rules of divinity and mortality, it shouldn't have been able to do that, not out in the open like that.

  Obviously, she didn't know what a demon like that could do to a waify little something like her. He expected better manners. It was getting tiresome, this business of having his expectations fall flat, time and time again.

  At the full end of his patience, he decided if she didn't need manners, neither did he. "Yeah, well," he called after her. "Maybe you haven't heard of me. Demons are my business."

  At the word demon, she stopped in her tracks.

  That got her attention, now, didn't it? He dragged deep on his cigarette, chuffing out the smoke in disgust.

  She issued an irritated huff and spun around, stomping back over to him. Grabbing his hand, she looked hard at his face, pressing closer, until they were nearly nose to nose.

  Her touch disoriented him, numbing the special part of his brain. A murmuring of jumbled voices filled his head. A shuffling sensation, a trip, a fall, a drop that he felt in his stomach—

  It cut off when she dropped his hand with a snort.

  "Well, I've heard of you now, Simon Alliant." She turned to leave again, rolling her eyes. "Exorcist and demonologist, indeed. You're just a fool bumbling through life with a fistful of charms."

  Simon opened his mouth to speak but all semblance of coherent language had deserted him. All except for one word: gob-smacked. Trying to scoop his senses back together, he shook off the last of the confusion.

  "Now, wait a minute." He smiled, open-mouthed, and waved a finger in her general direction. "I'm the only one who gets to say that."

  She turned the corner, out of sight. He followed after her at a run but, by the time he reached the street, she was gone.

  Leaning against the front of a convenience store, Simon slid out his last cigarette and crumpled the empty pack. Nothing. Two days of constant vigilance and nothing to show for it. The demon hadn't left enough of a trace for him to identify it, let alone bind it. When it planed out, it planed out completely.

  He rubbed his eyes, but his vision wouldn't clear. Everywhere he looked, he saw a thin trace of demonic energy, like a layer of muddy watercolor. Just nothing specific. He revisited the last manifestation site, retracing his steps. Nothing in the club. Nothing in the alley. No leads on the identity of the host kid.

  No sign of that girl.

  It was a relentless search, fueled by cheap coffee, cigarettes, fast food. He'd pause for a quick nod-off in a diner bathroom stall before hitting the streets again. If only this headache would quit—maybe a pair of sunglasses would dim that damned useless shadow he saw everywhere.

  Exhaling a plume of pale smoke, he flicked the butt into the parking lot before ducking into the convenience store. Coffee at this shop was consistently terrible, either too strong or piteously weak depending on who was working.

  Eying the clerk and the long line waiting at the counter, he grimaced. Weak brew it was, then. Extra cream couldn't fix that.

  He poured a large cup, no cream, and dropped in two caffeine tablets—the working man's answer to sugar. At least the bitter taste would help mask the lack of actual coffee flavor. While waiting in line, he paged through a newspaper. No leads there, either—not a single mention of an odd occurrence or unexplainable accident. That was the trouble with mainstream journalism—nobody ever reported the paranormal junk. How easy would that make his life?

  Once back outside, he squinted into the sunlight, slapping a new pack of Marlboros against the palm of his hand, wondering which direction to take.

  He smelled it first, an acrid stench like burning plastic. Always had a knack for standing downwind of demons. Lucky, that.

  Turning his head, he spied the guy sitting on the bus-stop bench at the corner. The host's spine was ram-rod stiff, his neck bent at an uncomfortable angle. The demon had been inside him for so long that he'd forgotten how to position his body.

  Simon exhaled a whisper, the words of a protective spell, while thumbing the ring on his middle finger, twisting it in a complete circle. Carved from galena taken from an abandoned mine in Sardinia, the silver charm was purported to hide one's magical signature, rendering the wearer invisible to magical sight.

  Maybe it worked. He couldn't be sure. Most of the time, he twisted it out of a nervous tick. He approached slowly, holding his breath, not relying solely on the charm to keep him from being detected. Step by step, just behind the normal range of peripheral vision, he moved closer.

  The guy stared straight ahead, head jerking, with irregular twitches. A thin line of drool seeped out of his mouth, his lips twisted in a snarl. He muttered like a dog having an angry dream.

  Another spot of movement drew Simon's attention. There was a person on the bench next to the kid.

  Simon's insides curdled. Damn it. A bystander. A complication he didn't want. He rubbed his mouth, watching, hoping the problem would fix itself. Maybe the bus would come around the corner. Maybe they'd start to wonder about the weirdo sitting next to them. Common sense wasn't completely extinct, right?

  The person leaned forward into view, her face tilted up toward the host's.

  And damn it again. He rolled his lips between his teeth. It was her. Again. This girl was ridiculous.

  She un-crossed her leg
s and scooted closer to him, her lips moving. Talking. She was talking to him. Talking, as if he wasn't ready to explode in a rain of hell fire, perhaps quite literally.

  Arms crossed, Simon intentionally side-stepped into her line of sight. She didn't break her gaze with the host, who had started shuddering like a malfunctioning robot.

  "Stay back, Simon." She raised her voice only enough to carry, her tone sing-songy and soothing. "He's listening."

  "And he's getting ready to blow." He flexed his fingers, fisting and releasing in tense anticipation. "Let me take care of this."

  "Don't be a fool," she said. "It would be really poor judgment on your part."

  She reached up toward the demon's face, whispering.

  Suddenly, the guy relaxed, going limp, like a marionette whose strings had just been cut. His head fell back, mouth slack, eyes rolled. A stream of thin black smoke rushed out of his mouth with a sizzle. The smoke, scented like rotten eggs, flitted past Simon before dissipating on a steady breeze.

  Slowly, the guy pulled himself upright, glancing warily around in apparent confusion.

  Simon took a swig of coffee and grimaced. Small wonder. He hadn't really been himself for days.

  "Where am I?" The man rubbed his face with both hands and tried to stand. His legs weren't ready to hold him. He dropped back down on the bench with a thump.

  "Baltimore." The woman patted his leg. "You're okay, now. You were possessed."

  "Oh, right. I bet." His grogginess faded, replaced with a cockiness that dripped from every word. "By a demon, right?"

  "Yes, by a demon." She dipped her head in a nod. "There is no other kind of possession." She tugged a silver tin out of her purse and opened it. Sunlight glinted wetly off its contents. She dipped her finger into it, scooping up a glob of clear sparkly jelly. Whispering, she traced the shape of a cross on his forehead.

  "You opened yourself up to darkness," she said, and snapped the tin shut with a snick. "Don't want it to happen again? Keep your thoughts and your intentions in the light. Make good choices. It's the only way to keep the darkness from taking you again."