by Louisa Lo
Assuming Tatus was right, though, Yelena’s cause of death was undiagnosed hereditary heart condition, to be triggered by the severe allergy attack she was about to receive from the aged rum in her dessert cocktail. Apparently, she’d forgotten to ask them to make it a virgin.
“So what’s her crime?” I asked Gregory.
His eyes danced with amusement. “Why don’t you take a guess?”
“Black widow.” It was the most obvious choice. “Maybe like that McCain case we did with the woman who’d poisoned five husbands and took their life savings.”
Gregory shook his head.
Damn. Usually the most obvious thing was the most likely. Not in this case. “Er, art theft. She’s distracting the old man so her partner could clean out his safe.”
“No.” He was grinning smugly. Bastard.
“Corporate espionage. She’s trying to get him to say things she could take back to his business rival.”
“No.”
“Oh, come on. Skipping out on the bill for her boob job? Crime of fashion?” I asked, eyeing the front slit of Yelena’s dress, which revealed half her private parts.
“No.”
I was stumped. “Tell me.”
Gregory leaned closer. “Remember Rabbit Hill?”
My mouth fell open. “The man who was having unprotected sex with women knowing he was HIV-positive and didn’t tell them? The one whose face we put a hundred warts on to make sure he’s too gross to ever get laid again?”
“That’s the one.” Gregory chuckled. “Yelena is the female version of that guy. Except the list of her victims is so long that an early admission to Hell was scheduled.”
“I knew it has something to do with what’s she’s doing with the old man!” I pumped my fist.
“But you didn’t guess what she’s after, now didn’t you?” Gregory laughed.
I should’ve been peeved about guessing wrong, but truth be told, I was just enjoying the heck out of talking shop with Gregory. It might seem weird to some to talk about genital warts at the dinner table, but we were vengeance demons and mercenaries, and this line of conversation was just fine with me.
And a part of me wondered if after tonight we would have the chance to do so again.
I entertained him with tales of some of my childhood trickery adventures. I told him about that time when I enchanted the bingo marker belonging to Miss Neringa, the nosy giantess next door. During Friday night bingo, she gossiped as usual and found the circles she made with her marker disappear with each groundless, harmful speculation.
“I have to say, I’m impressed,” Gregory said. “That was a perfect blending of vengeance and trickery.”
I blushed. Hearing such a direct compliment from him was nice. Very nice. “I did it unconsciously. It took another decade before I realized I have to embrace those two sides of me.”
A look of uncertainty passed over Gregory’s face. “Megan, there’s a question I’ve meant to ask you for a long time. But I wasn’t sure if you’d be offended.”
“What is it?” Oh no, he wasn’t about to ask if I’d colored my hair, was he? And no, I wasn’t on a diet, either. I was suddenly self-conscious that I was more full-figured than the average, stick-thin female vengeance demons. But then, he knew I was a hybrid—
“How did you ever survive four trickster brothers?”
I laughed. That was an easier question than I thought. “With a lot of intel gathering and sneakiness.”
“How so?” Gregory’s tone was full of curiosity.
“When I was very little, I was just surviving from one prank to another, you know? Then I realized that while tricksters love to trick, they also like to keep things fresh. Like, if I sat on a whoopee cushion this week, I most likely won’t see it for another month. And my brothers don’t like to do the same prank in the same week as others, unless it’s a group project. So I started keeping careful track of who did what trick, and when. After that, it was just a matter of keeping an eye out for stuff that hadn’t happen for a while, and save my energy on stuff that was just hot last week. And then Twitter came along, and it helped tons.”
“Twitter?” He snickered.
“I follow all the major trickster groups. Tricksters love to brag about their Trick of the Week, and will sometimes even challenge each other to do quests and stuff. If it’s Switcheroo Week, then you betcha I’m going to double check my homework before handing it in. Then I do some pre-emptive strikes, too, like hiding all the laxatives during the Week of Diarrhea.”
“A lot of intel gathering indeed.” Gregory sipped at the sparkling water we’d both ordered, his eyes glinting with admiration. It seemed a shame to be eating French food without some nice wine, but we would be going back to working mode soon enough.
Talking about being on limited time, I had something I’d been meaning to ask Gregory as well. I was feeling brave and closer to him than ever, so I might as well do it. “Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“How did you meet Mel?”
Gregory gaze became faraway. He remained silent for so long I began regretting the question. Then his face softened. “Do you remember how in my mother’s memory, she mentioned that I had been hanging out at the Field?”
I nodded. That was the spot where low-income vengeance kids went to practice their magic.
“As a rather angry young man, I’d gotten into my fair share of fights in school. Most of the time it’s from people laughing about my heritage. I could take them calling me a bastard, but not when they called my mother a whore. So when that happened I invited them to the Field to settle our differences. In the beginning, I lost a lot. I soon learned to use my allowance to buy magical balm to hide my bruises from my mother. Sometimes it meant skipping a few lunches. But I never let an insult of my mother go unchallenged.”
I winced. I remembered the memory showing Gregory as a four- or five-year-old who still loved his daddy, and the other one with him as a hardened young teen who had already started frequenting the Field. But what was not shown was that somewhere in between those two life stages was a young kid who got teased at school without the skills to fight back. My heart ached for that child.
But that child didn’t stay that way.
“After a long while, I started winning,” Gregory continued. “And I attracted the attention of a group of older kids. Some of them had parents who were mercenaries, some of them had started in the trade themselves. They were nice to me, and gave me tips on how to be a better and dirtier fighter. It was the first time in my life I was treated like a person, not defined by what my biological father did or didn’t do.”
I swallowed. No matter how bad I’d had it in school, my childhood world was anchored by having a set of loving parents and half-siblings that, no matter how much more spirited or straight-laced than I was, still treated me well in their own ways. Gregory never had that. He had his mother, but that was it.
“Then one day,” Gregory said with wonder, “my new friends were talking about a job that needed doing. A job that paid well.”
“What was the job?” I asked.
“They suspected one of the teachers in my school of touching female students in an inappropriate manner, and they needed to plant a magical recording device in his office. The device was similar to a human one, except that upon the collection of supportive evidence, it automatically triggered a glaring beacon in the Cosmic Balance.”
“What’s the beacon for?” I asked.
“It blares out a signal that’s too annoying to ignore, forcing the licensed vengeance demons to make addressing the injustice a priority,” Gregory said with grim satisfaction. “Without the mercenaries forcing their hands, it often takes the bureaucrats years before doing the right thing, and in the meanwhile more and more victims suffered. That’s why there are so many unresolved cases of sexual abuse involving adults in positions of power. The job in question was contracted by the parents of a victim who committed suicide after the sy
stem failed her.”
One would think that the safety of minors should’ve been a priority, but sadly, I wasn’t surprised about the inefficiency of the process. It was, after all, being ran by the likes of the Council and the Greys.
“My friends would’ve gladly taken the job themselves, but there was a problem,” Gregory explained. “All of them had dropped out of school by that time. And they had all left in such a manner that it would be impossible for them to return. They’d be barred from entry no matter what magical disguise they donned. The safeguards around the school were strong enough to do that, though it did nothing to protect those who were inside the school.”
“But you could get in because you were still a student there,” I guessed.
Gregory grinned, his pride for his first job shone in his eyes, making him look years younger. “And I did. Earned myself enough money to buy my mom a new design table. After I planted the recording device in the pervert’s office, my friends took me to see Mel, who was the one who sent out the call, and he gave me my pay. He told me outright that mercenary wasn’t some gang culture to aspire to, but a way of life that had a place in the Cosmic Balance, even though many believe otherwise. His words, and the realization that I’d helped not just myself, but the world that day, changed my life.”
“How did you explain where you got the money when you gave your mom the new design table?” I asked.
Gregory shrugged. “I told her I worked part time at a magical supplies shop and she bought it. It also explained the many nights I was late getting home because of the fighting. People saw what they needed to see.”
It was then that the server approached our table with the appetizers. I licked my lips in anticipation. This was going to be good.
There were the escargots. Then the frog legs, in what appeared to be a butter and garlic sauce.
But the server didn’t stop there. He also put down shredded pork and apricots on slices of baguettes, salmon tartares, mushroom tartlets, and herb-and-lemon baby artichokes.
How could there be so many appetizers? And why was there double of everything?
Oh no. I must’ve said yes to all the appetizer specials of the day thinking they were main dishes, and Gregory had followed suit.
He didn’t say anything as we dug in. I was too embarrassed to even look at him. The food, though, was delicious, especially the frog legs. And no, they didn’t taste like chicken.
“Think about it,” Gregory said after he polished off his salmon tartare, his tone casual. “We can pretend we’re having Spanish cuisine. Then these would be tapas.”
“I think the French chef would be horrified to have his food mistaken for Spanish.” I giggled, my embarrassment forgotten.
Come what may, it was a fun date.
“So will you keep going out with me if I take you to eat frog legs every day?” Gregory teased as he pushed his own dish of frog legs toward me, watching me polish them off in quick succession.
“I don't know.” I tapped my chin, pretending to really have to think about it.
“Oh.” His face fell.
“Not the part about going out with you, silly," I hastily assured him. “But the part about eating frog legs every day.”
“Because it’s more of an occasional treat?” he suggested.
“No, I like it enough to have it often. But the growing worldwide demand for them is killing the frog population.”
Gregory chuckled. “Oh, Megan. You’re one in a million.”
“You better remember it." I used the dessert menu to hide my own smile. With us saving some unexpected time due to skipping the main course, did I have time for a quick dessert? Maybe not a chocolate molten lava cake or anything time-consuming to make, but ice cream over warmed apple pie would be wonderful.
After the unfortunate appetizer-turned-tapas incident, sticking with classic dessert I could pronounce sounded like a great idea.
There was the sound of glasses breaking. We turned and found Yelena King breathing heavily like a fish out of water, her face turning blue. A broken cocktail glass lay on the floor, spilling its champagne-colored liquid onto the thick carpet. Her date frantically gestured the waiter to come over.
“That’s the beginning of the end. I’m afraid our date’s over,” Gregory said regretfully.
“What? But how?” I checked the time on my cell phone. “She’s, like fifteen minutes away from her time of death.”
“Maybe she struggles for a while before dying,” Gregory suggested.
“Oh.” That was something I hadn’t considered because I was in the business of punish and release, not eternal torment in the down under. Damn, no dessert for me then.
Gregory quickly paid the bill. It had taken a bit of magical persuasion to keep the ball rolling with the process, as the entire panicked staff was focused on caring for the dying woman or calling for help.
After the bill was settled, Gregory and I got up and made ourselves invisible with a spell that let us phase out of the surrounding mortals’ minds in a gradual manner that wouldn’t alarm them. Though if we were to be invisible to the ever-seeing reapers, we would need a lot more than that.
I took out a tube of gooey black paste from my purse and after taking a slab with my index finger, handed it over to Gregory. Holding my breath, I slathered it all over my forehead and cheeks. The tube was a just-in-case gift from Bonaventure the Third, and even with my breath held, a whiff of wet paint and rotten bananas got through.
Yes, the burning sensation on my face was the feeling of ground maggots from the Grimmian Forest seeping into my pores. It was poisonous and prolonged exposure would send us to the Underworld on a permanent basis. The slow heat soon blossomed into a sharp pain, as if my face was being sliced open with a letter opener.
I know. I know. It was absolutely disgusting to be touched by maggot paste, of all things, right after a romantic dinner. But we were, after all, professionals. It was the only way we could fool the reaper who would be coming for the soon-to-be departed into not sensing us.
“I guess we won’t be doing the customary post-date kiss, huh?” I joked.
But soon I was in no mood for humor.
The longer I had the paste on, the heavier my heart grew. Physically I felt like a fifty-ton gorilla was sitting on my chest; emotionally, despair was settling into my very bone, whispering to me that all was lost and nothing in the world was worth fighting for anymore.
By now Yelena was clutching the left side of her chest with a pained expression on her face. Here came the heart attack.
A team of paramedics rushed into the restaurant just when she lost consciousness. As they started performing CPR on her, a quick glance at my cell showed that her time was near.
Yet there was still no sign of the reaper.
Gregory and I, unseen by the paramedics, each placed a finger on Yelena’s shoulders.
“Come on, come on!” I muttered, willing the reaper to show up to end her misery and allow us to hitch a ride to Hell. Every second the maggot paste stayed on my body was excruciating.
“You know how they are,” Gregory said. His tone was calm, but I saw his knitted brows. He must be in as much pain as I was.
“Yeah, I know.” I rolled my eyes. Reapers ‘R’ Us, the organization that handled the dispatching of all angels of deaths, operated on a just-in-time business model like a Japanese car manufacturing plant, and preferred to have their reapers not show up until right before the big finale. “But would it kill them to leave a little margin for errors?”
“I’m going to call it,” one of the paramedics yelled, causing her date to cry out in dismay.
Fifteen seconds to the true time of death. Often, there was a lag between the last sign of life was detected by humans and the soul actually leaving the body.
In the last five seconds, the reaper finally showed up. He wore a suit that was no less formal than those in the French restaurant, and his face had the gauntness that was the signature of his kind. He didn’t s
eem to notice us.
Gregory and I exchanged a look of relief.
The reaper took out a notepad, confirming his target’s descriptions, and began chanting the words “Go to Hell” repeatedly. It might sound like a curse to humans, but to the reapers it was just a mundane travel instruction for the spirits.
Yelena’s soul separated itself from her body. Gregory and I made sure we kept our fingers on the real her, not her discarded corporal body. I clasped Gregory’s arm with my free hand and he did the same with mine, and I repeated the reaper’s words in my mind three times. Then the reaper gave Yelena a light touch on her cheek, and off her soul went, flying through the many layers of the Cosmic Balance, heading straight for the front gate of Hell, taking us with her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
VIP
While it was true that Hell was whatever you made of it, the grand entrance of the Underworld was the same for everyone— long, steep red-carpeted stairs leading up to an ultra-posh casino, with overhead lights from hundreds of bulbs bathing the steps in eternal brightness.
The now-dead Yelena, still clutching the left side of her chest, looked around her in confusion.
“How did I get here? Where am I?” she asked. Then she stared up at the lights above her and stopped talking, an expression of awe on her face. She dropped her hand to her side.
Every wrongdoer knew, deep down, that they were headed to Hell all their lives. They were simply too arrogant to admit there would be consequences to their actions, but they always knew.
In what could be a few seconds or an eternity—time moved differently here not just in relation to the other planes, but also for each individual—Yelena’s expression went from shock, anger, fear, then finally resignation. Maybe those bright bulbs served as some sort of mental adjustment or something.