My wife and son had a point. The Case of the Haunted Safeway had ended with a lovely ceremony, held in Aisle 6: Chips, Salsa and Ethnic Foods. I’d been best man to a tortured soul who had been murdered because he loved a man so deeply he refused to leave him, despite losing a fortune because of it, despite threats of violence.
Well, fine. Maybe pink sunglasses didn’t make me gay, but man, did they sure make me feel like an idiot.
I put them on, took in the crowd. Betty Lou’s charms stripped away illusions—I saw a half-dozen demons in the crowd, hooting and hollering just like everyone else. Most of the security guys were demons, too. Black suits and white shirts hid their bodies, but not their faces. What a horror show.
One of the security demons was off to my right, at the end of our aisle. He looked like a lizard had caught flesh-eating bacteria then been dipped in boiling oil and rolled in gravel. He looked my way. I glanced off, watching him out of the corner of my eye. Was he looking at me?
No, he was scanning the audience, looking for potential problems. He reached a nasty hand to a nasty ear, nodded. When he lowered his hand, I saw the earpiece wedged into his pointed ear.
The crowd’s excitement picked up. Some stuffed shirt approached the podium. On the video screens behind him, he looked a hundred feet tall. He revved up the crowd with an introduction, an introduction that finished with “here is the next President of the United States of America!”
The crowd roared. When the candidate stepped to the podium, the roar intensified.
And right behind him—the stupidest-looking demon I’ve ever seen.
“Damn,” Luke said. “Buer really is that ugly.”
He was at that. A sneering lion’s head with piercing, intelligent eyes, eyes that soaked up the crowd’s energy. And its body? Not sure it had one—sprouting from the mane were five goat legs: dirty white fur, cloven hooves and all.
I was looking at the President of Hell. Well, a president of Hell, anyway.
Buer smiled his lion’s smile, raised two of his goat-feet-whatever-the-fuck-they-were, and waved them.
Simultaneously, the candidate smiled. The candidate raised his arms. The candidate waved.
“Shit balls,” Luke said. “Buer’s controlling him like a puppet.”
Betty Lou and I didn’t even bother correcting Luke’s language.
The crowd ate it all up. This was what they had come to see, their guy, the man who would change things, who wasn’t beholden to the “political machine” that had run the country for so long. The very idea of it made me realize just how gullible people could be—a man who’d been made rich by the establishment was going to fight to stop the establishment from making people rich?
Believe that, and I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
The candidate lowered his hands, held the edges of the podium. The crowd quieted just enough for him to open his speech.
“Friends and fellow Americans, we are going to set things right.”
The crowd roared. I felt like I was at a football game and the home team had just scored the winning touchdown. People leaned toward him, eyes wide, ears eager to drink in everything he had to say.
Off to my right, I saw a security demon at the end of our aisle. He had one of those secret service earpieces in his nasty, pointy ear.
To my left I saw two more, one wearing cop sunglasses. Just standing in the crowd. Had we been spotted?
The candidate continued, his voice booming through the hall.
“Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims.”
Like that guy had any idea what it was like to face real violence. The rich almost never know what many of America’s poor see on an almost daily basis. But he was telling the crowd what they wanted to hear—there was going to be a new sheriff in town, and a hanging judge, and those two were one and the same.
“I have a message for all of you,” the candidate said. “The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th 2017, safety will be restored.”
I glanced back at the demon on my right—he was staring directly at me.
We’d been made.
The demon started sliding through the crowd toward us.
I tugged on Betty Lou’s hand.
“We need to leave,” I said. “Now.”
Luke slapped my shoulder.
“Uh, Pa, I think we’re in trouble.”
I followed my son’s gaze—the two security demons to our left were working their way toward us.
And, from in front of us, two more.
“Follow me,” I said, “stay close.”
But when I turned to leave, there were two demons—big fuckers—standing right behind us. They looked like warped lobsters wearing white shirts and black suit coats.
I hesitated, for just a moment, and in that moment they all closed in.
We were surrounded.
“Pa, can we fight our way out?”
The demon with the cop sunglasses shook his head.
“I wouldn’t recommend that,” he said. “Buer is aware of your presence. He would like a word. Would you follow me backstage, please?”
“We ain’t going nowhere,” I said.
Cop Shades stared at me. “I assure you, he only wants to talk.”
I sneered. “Right. And I should either take a demon—you—at his word, or believe the President of Hell? We all know that politicians always tell the truth, right?”
Cop Shades smiled, revealing pointy teeth, several of which were broken and jagged.
“Come with us now, or we’ll kill you where you stand and say you were Muslims trying to assassinate the candidate. This crowd would love to believe that’s true. I think that’s the better choice and it would get us more votes, but Buer calls the shots.”
I quickly scanned the demons surrounding us, seeing if one or two looked weak, if we could punch a hole through their circle and make a run for it. Individually, I was sure we could whoop any of their nasty asses, but there were six of them and three of us. Betty Lou could handle herself, but Luke ain’t much of a scrapper.
If I’d have brought Bo, we’d have mopped the floor with them. But I hadn’t brought Bo.
No way I was going to take my wife and son somewhere these demon assholes could do away with us quickly and quietly. We were going to have to fight our way out of it. Maybe I could drop two of them fast, make enough room for Betty Lou and Luke to make a break for it.
I slid a hand into my pants pocket, let my fingers slip through the loops of Old Glory—silver knuckles that Betty Lou had charmed up good and proper. Best anniversary present she ever got me.
From behind, a big, lobstery hand rested on my shoulder.
“Bring those mitts out where we can see them,” Cop Shades said. “If I see anything but skin, I’ll start with the boy.”
Luke’s eyes widened.
Outnumbered or not, we had to make our move. I breathed in, gathering myself for the moment—an instant before I turned to strike, Betty Lou gripped my forearm, stilling me.
“If you mean no harm,” Betty Lou said to Cop Shades, “then you won’t object to a binding spell. Right?”
Cop Shades said nothing. Betty Lou must have taken that silence as a yes.
She reached into her purse, fished around through the sea of mysteries therein, until she pulled out a jeweled pin—a garish peacock of some kind.
“Tacky,” Cop Shades said.
Betty Lou nodded. “But powerful. If we come with you, you will be bound to keep us safe from all harm, caused by you or by others—including Buer. As Buer’s emissary, you agree that this binds him as well. We don’t harm him and his, you don’t harm me and mine.”
Cop Shades glanced around at the crowd. Perhaps he was debating if he could make good on his threats of instant martyrdom.
Mayb
e he thought better of it, because he smiled at Betty Lou.
“Of course,” he said. “I agree.”
Betty flipped open the brooch’s clasp, jabbed the pin into her palm. The garishly colored fake gemstones flared and pulsed with magical energy.
She held her bleeding palm toward Cop Shades.
“Swear on blood,” she said.
Cop Shades could lie out his mouth all day, but blood binds. Even in the hands of an amateur, blood magic has power. When wielded by a master like my wife? Shit is damn near bulletproof.
The demon held out his disgusting hand. His long talons reflected the overhead lights. Betty Lou’s blood was still on the pin when she poked it into the demon’s wrinkly palm. The bit of costume jewelry glowed bright, then evaporated in a puff of sparkly magic.
“You are bound by your word,” she said. “Lead the way.”
I have to make a confession—I’ve spent my life dealing with the dark arts, yet I don’t know a whole lot about how most magic works. When it comes to stompin’ the supernatch, you might say I’m a size-fourteen steel-toed boot with cow shit and gravel jammed up in the treads. Betty Lou? She’s more like a pair of pumps with lethal stiletto heels. I’m blunt trauma—my wife is delicate surgery.
“Follow me,” Cop Shades said, and he walked through the crowd.
I didn’t know if Betty Lou had enough power to bind these demons, and therefore Buer as well, but I did what I’d done since the day we met—I trusted her.
Luke, Betty Lou and I followed Cop Shades, demons flanking us on either side, and the two big lobster fuckers bringing up the rear.
***
The demon parade led us away from the crowd, into the back hallways of Moscone. Rolling racks for food, coffee, cleaning carts, random bits of machinery under repair… the unseen lifeblood pumping through the convention center’s arteries.
We were led to a door that had two huge demons standing to either side of it. They wore suits and white shirts, just like the rest. One of them had a face that made me wonder if a walrus and cockroach could do the nasty and kick out some big-ass kids. The other had a disturbing resemblance to a young Clint Eastwood, if Clint had been made of green-tinted SPAM.
Walrus-Roach opened the door. We followed Cop Shades inside.
A green room of some kind, meant for stars or convention presenters to rest before their time on stage. Three more black-suited demons were already inside, but the demon standing dead center in the room caught and held my attention.
Buer.
My pink sunglasses hadn’t played tricks on me—he was, indeed, a lion’s head with five goat legs sticking out of it. He smelled like a goat—unpleasant, yet it reminded me of our place back in Slayerville.
“I presume you’re from the Protectorate,” Buer said. “You seem to have taken your redneck costume to great lengths. You look like his ideal voter.”
“And you look like the aborted fetus of a sunflower that grudge-fucked some roadkill,” I said. “That or a drunken swastika.”
I like to get my feelings out in the open. I’m diplomatic that way.
Buer’s cat eyes flicked across me and mine like we were insects destined for a pushpin and a curio frame. His lion nose sniffed at the air, then the eyes narrowed with annoyance. Or maybe it was hunger, I really wasn’t sure.
“How fortunate for you that my underling agreed to a binding spell,” he said. He glared at Cop Shades. “Something I will discuss with him later, in private.”
The sunglasses blocked Cop Shades’ eyes, but from the way his posture sagged I knew that the discussion wasn’t exactly going to involve a six pack and thoughts on the College Football Playoffs.
Buer moved. He didn’t walk, he rolled—yes, rolled, pinwheeling on smelly goat legs—to Betty Lou’s purse, which had been set on a table.
“You had magics in this bag that protected you,” he said. “Of course, that same bag full of magic is how we detected you.” He looked at my wife, grinned a lion’s grin. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t have known you were here. Ironic, is it not?”
Betty Lou frowned. She’d made a mistake, and she knew it.
Buer looked at me, feline eyes sharp and alert.
“You can take those pink sunglasses off now,” he said. “You know you look like an idiot, right?”
I took the glasses off, yet I could still see him. His invisibility was some kind of charm he could turn on and off.
“You’re telling me I look like an idiot?” I shook my head. “Ever glance in a mirror, Yellow Brick Road? Or don’t they have mirrors that don’t melt down in Hell.”
Betty Lou gestured to her purse.
“I’ve got a makeup compact in there,” she said. “Hunter’s right—you should take a look before you criticize other people’s appearances.”
Damn, do I love that girl.
“You’re an arrogant woman,” Buer said. “You seem to have a lot of faith in that binding spell of yours.”
Betty Lou smiled sweetly. “Oh, bless your heart. If you don’t think I’ve got the power to back it up, why don’t you try to break it?”
Buer made no move. Was my wife facing down a president of Hell? As I said, I love her like nobody’s business, but I was also praying she knew what she was doing.
“Perhaps later,” Buer said. “For now, you can all tell me what you’re doing here.”
Time to get down to brass tacks.
“You’re meddling with the election,” Luke said. “We’re here to stop you.”
I put my hand on my son’s shoulder and squeezed, hard enough to get his attention but not hard enough to make him wince. He knew better—I was supposed to do the talking, not him.
“I’m not meddling in anything,” Buer said. He shrugged, with all five goat legs. “I’m merely volunteering my time and expertise for a cause I believe in. There’s nothing to worry about—this is democracy in action.”
“You ain’t a citizen of the United States,” I said. “Which means you shouldn’t be involved at all. So how about you get your ass out of my town? Maybe down in Hell you’ve got all kinds of power, but on the plane of the living, you ain’t got shit.”
Have you ever seen a lion smile? Let me tell you, it’s very disturbing.“You’re half right, anyway,” Buer said. “In Hell, I’ve got power to spare.”
Was he saying he also had power here? At the very least, he had the juice to disguise his demons. What else could he do up here?
“You’re making the candidate say things,” I said. “Some wild things, sure, but he won the nomination. What do you benefit if he wins the general election?”
The lion face grinned. “Who says I want him to win?”
In the pause that followed, I realized something we hadn’t considered. Did he want the Republican candidate to win… or had he helped him so that the Democratic candidate would have an opponent that couldn’t possibly win the presidency?
I thought back to that old South Park episode about how the US presidential election is like choosing between a douche and a turd sandwich. The more elections I live through, the more I think that’s the way our system will always be.
Buer waved one cloven foot.
“You may leave,” he said. “I hope we meet again. Very soon.”
A sardonic smile on that lion face, a smile that showed plenty of long, sharp teeth.
Betty Lou gently gripped my elbow.
“Hunter, let’s go.”
We’ve been married a long time, she and I. Her eyes said more than her mouth could, and her eyes said she was running out of strength to hold the binding spell.
Time to get out while the getting was good.
She grabbed her purse from the table.
I conveniently left the pink sunglasses behind. I swear, sometimes
I can be so forgetful.
***
Home sweet home.
I’d gathered the family in the TV room. The place has a “family room,” but it strikes me as a ballroom packed with
more furniture than any group short of a full military company could ever use. The one we used for family gatherings had a flat-panel TV, the living room did not, so the smaller TV room had become our default gathering place.
Betty Lou was telling Bo and Sunshine about our wee little adventure with Buer. The two kids were all ears—Bo, wide-eyed and focused; Sunshine, her eyes locked on the piece of pine she whittled at with a Bowie knife. Luke, meanwhile, was pounding away on his laptop like it owed him money. I leaned against a wall, arms folded, simultaneously listening to Betty Lou and letting my mind wander, hoping my subconscious might lead me to a solution my conscious mind couldn’t quite grasp.
We’ve had far more dangerous run-ins with the supernatch than our encounter with Buer, but something about that messed-up sunflower made my nuts shrivel up and want to burrow for cover just south of my heart.
“Then they let us go,” Betty Lou said, finishing the tale.
Bo shrugged. “That doesn’t sound so bad, Ma. But you seem really scared.”
“I am scared.” Betty Lou pursed her lips, thinking. “There’s something… off about what he said.”
Sunshine set down her knife and wood.
“He let you go real easy, Ma,” she said. “You check to see if he put a tracker on you?”
My wife nodded. “Course I did. Full check across all eldritch spectrums. He just let us go, didn’t seem to care about where we went.”
“Our location ain’t no secret,” Luke said without looking up from his laptop. His bony little fingers on the keyboard sounded like a nonstop drumroll. “We work for the Netherworld Protectorate. This house is owned by the Protectorate. Any demon who can grab his ass with both hands would know where to find us… if they really wanted to.”
I honestly wasn’t sure where ass fell on Betty Lou’s list of ear-flickable curse words, but she didn’t seem to take notice. Lucky Luke.
“Here’s the thing,” I said. “Buer is clearly trying to influence the election, but now I don’t know who he wants to win.”
Betty Lou glared at me.
“He’s a demon, Hunter. He obviously wants that man to win.”
The Demons of King Solomon Page 27