by N. P. Martin
“You know me, baby. I’m always around when you need me.”
I nodded. “Let me guess. You were in some guy’s house, or a bar, getting to know him before you suck him dry.”
“A gal’s gotta do what she’s gotta do. You know that.”
“I’m just glad you weren’t too ‘in the moment’ to sense that I was in deep shit.”
“You get into more deep shit than the shit worms in Hell,” she said. “I’ve learned to stay tuned in as far you’re concerned, Dee.” She stepped forward and stroked my cheek. “So much blood on you. If you want, I can lick it all off when we get home.”
“Gross, Zee.”
“What? I can tell a lot about someone from the taste of their blood.”
“Believe me, Zee,” I said, looking past her at the smoke and flames belting out of the cinema room. “This guy, you don’t wanna know.”
“You let him bite you?”
“It was my only option. I’m just glad it worked.”
“Of course it worked. I said it would, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“And I’m always here for you, aren’t I?”
“You are.”
She smiled as she tilted her head at me. “You better believe it, baby.”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before we end up like toast.”
“Shouldn’t you call the fire department?” she said as she linked her arm through mine.
Despite the fact that she was being facetious, I said, “Hell no. Let this place burn to the fucking ground.”
Zee squeezed my arm tighter as we exited on to the street, which was already filling with the smoke that billowed from the roof of the building. “That’s my boy.”
2
Home for me was Bricktown, in which I had an apartment in one of the many tall tenement buildings. Police sirens wailed day and night in that godforsaken neighborhood, though it was all for show as the cops had long given up on the community. Gunshots were heard regularly from a few blocks over, and sometimes you caught sight of armed gangs exchanging live fire on the streets as frightened citizens scrambled to take cover. The local businesses were all protected by grilles, locks, and bars. Economically, Bricktown was a black hole, as poverty prevailed and the only ones making a buck were the criminals that were unwelcome anywhere else. For most of the ordinary residents there, life was a living hell.
As for me, I’d been living in Bricktown for the last seven years. Before that, I had spent a year living on the streets as a heroin addict, a lifestyle choice prompted by my dear sister’s unfortunate disappearance. If I hadn’t met Zee around that time, I probably would’ve ended up dead with a needle in my arm. She was my savior, and my new addiction. And although Zee—full name Zelda Scarrow—was a demon, I loved her more than I had ever loved any human, besides my mother and sister, but my mother was dead and my sister was nowhere to be found. Zee was all I had.
After leaving the burning snuff cinema, Zee and I walked a couple blocks before hailing a cab, but the cabbie took one look at me, all covered in blood as I was, and refused to let me in his cab. Thankfully, Zee used her demonic wiles to change the cabbie’s mind, wrapping the guy around her little finger in less than a minute. By the time she was done, the cabbie couldn’t wait to drive us home. He even stopped on the way so Zee could run into a liquor store and get me a fresh bottle of whiskey. A bottle of Glenfiddich, aged eighteen years, bless her. After the night I’d had, I needed it. The cabbie refused to take any fare when he dropped us at Bricktown. “Much obliged, baby doll,” Zee said in her deep, sultry voice as she smiled alluringly at the cabbie.
“Any time, baby,” the cabbie said, smiling like he was head over heels in love with her, and he probably was, for Zee was a succubus. It was in her nature to get strange men to fall in love with her. I had been in love with her since the minute I met her. She was just that kind of demon.
The cabbie had dropped us across the road from our tenement building, and as the yellow cab drove away, I spotted something in the middle of the road as I was about to cross. “Is that a cat sitting over there?”
Zee looked down the street. “Yeah, it is.”
“Why do you think it’s just sitting there like that?”
“I don’t know. Because it’s a cat and cats are weird?”
“So are you.”
“Yeah,” she said, taking no offense. “But I’m also sexy as hell and give great blowjobs. Show me a sexy cat that gives great blowjobs and I’ll show you—Dee, where the hell are you going?”
I had run off by this point for a truck had just rounded the corner down the street and was now about to bear down on the cat, which still hadn’t moved. “Hey!” I shouted at the cat. “Move your furry ass before you get pancaked!”
The gray cat didn’t even look at me when I shouted at it. It just went right on sitting there as if there wasn’t a ten ton truck right on its ass. As for the truck driver, he just went right on trucking as if there wasn’t a defenseless cat in the middle of the road. Because of the lack of lighting on the street—the drug dealers routinely knocked out all the lights—the trucker wouldn’t have seen the cat until it was too late. I could also hear loud rock music blaring out the window of the truck, so the trucker—who was probably coked up as well, to get him through the night—was likely in a world of his own. All of which added up to one thing—I had to save the cat.
So even though the truck was coming fast, I sprinted out into the road. But even before I grabbed the cat, I was aware of the truck’s headlamps getting brighter as they got closer to me.
Oh shit. This was a dumb idea. Maybe if I had my sigil cards on me, I could use one to slow the truck down.
But those assholes that worked for Byron Black had taken all my cards earlier.
Oh well. I’ll have to chance it then.
I grabbed the cat from off the road, scooping it up into my arms, and then went to dash across the rest of the road before the truck hit me. But as I went to run, I tripped, my boot catching in a pothole, and the next thing I was falling over with the cat in my arms and the truck coming at me. I heard the truck’s brakes screech, but it was still coming fast, fast enough to knock me into the next week.
Oh shit…Maybe this wasn’t the best idea…
But before I could hit the asphalt, I was grabbed by Zee and rushed across the rest of the road to safety, just as the truck blared its horn and carried on skidding up the road.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Dee!” Zee exclaimed. “You could’ve been killed!”
With a sigh of relief, I smiled at her and said, “Twice in one night. You’re on a role.”
“Honestly, I could suck you dry for being so stupid.”
Up the street, the truck had finally stopped, and the driver was hanging out the window. “Hey!” he shouted. “What the fuck, man?”
“Sorry,” I shouted back. “Cat!”
The driver shook his head. “Asshole!”
“Yeah, you too, buddy!”
“What the hell are you going to do with that thing?” Zee asked, eyeing the cat warily as if it had the power to send her back to Hell.
I shrugged as I stroked the cat’s head. The cat appeared to be oblivious to everything that had just happened. It just sat in my arms staring straight ahead like it was trying to work out a very difficult math problem and couldn’t afford to break its concentration lest it have to start again. “I dunno. Take it up and feed it, maybe?”
“Maybe I can eat it,” Zee said. “Can I eat it?”
“No, Zee, you cannot eat the cat.”
“Maybe you’re right. I mean, what if I got a fur ball stuck in my throat or something? Do you even know the Heimlich Maneuver?”
“You’re a demon, Zee. You’re virtually indestructible.”
“What if it carries a disease that only affects demons then? You always hear how cats carry diseases, don’t you?”
“You really don’t want this cat in the apartment, do you?
”
Zee shook her head. “I don’t trust it.”
“I can’t believe you’re afraid of a cat.”
“Did I say afraid? I said I don’t trust it. There’s a difference.”
“You’re afraid of the cat. Afraid it might steal your thunder, maybe?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You stop being ridiculous,” I said as I turned and walked to the tenement entrance. “I’m sure it belongs to someone. I’ll ask around tomorrow.”
“It doesn’t sleep in our bed.”
“It can sleep in the living room.”
“I was thinking more the broom cupboard.”
* * *
The apartment wasn’t the biggest, but it was home. It was a two bedroom, the biggest of which functioned as my office. The place was nicely furnished, though, thanks mostly to Zee, who had used her powers of persuasion on various store owners to get them to happily provide her with whatever she wanted, including a green leather Chesterfield sofa and two wing-backed chairs for the living room, a sixty-inch widescreen TV, a separates hi-fi system, a Persian rug, an antique coffee table, and a large bookcase that housed all the trashy novels that Zee liked to read.
The walls were also covered in art, ranging from ridiculously expensive modern art canvases to original paintings by masters like William Blake and Hieronymus Bosch. There was literally millions of dollars hanging on the walls. I had never asked Zee to get any of this stuff. She had walked in with it herself on occasion, as if she had just found these items sitting outside. Zee could get almost anything she wanted from anyone. When we first met, she tried to get me to move to Bedford to a multi-million dollar penthouse, but I refused. If I had wanted to live like that, I would’ve just joined my father’s business. Money meant little to me, except as a means to get by. I didn’t care about living in luxury. Living as I did, existing mostly on the money I made through my website, kept me sharp. In my experience, money corrupted people. My father and all his associates were proof of that. I preferred to make it on my own as much as possible.
In the living room, I put the gray cat on the Chesterfield sofa and then stood looking down at it for a minute, trying to work out what was wrong with the feline. Its eyes seemed glazed over, and if I didn’t know any better, I would’ve said the cat looked traumatized, perhaps even the victim of some magic spell. Who knew?
“You’re just going to leave it there?” Zee said as she stood beside me looking down at the cat. “What if it shits on the sofa?”
“I’m sure it won’t,” I said. “And if it does, I’ll clean it up. Can you watch it while I go grab a shower?”
Zee nodded reluctantly. “I suppose so.”
“Try not to eat it while I’m gone.”
“I was joking about that.”
“No you weren’t.”
In the bathroom, I stripped off my clothes and dumped them on the floor, intending to dispose of them all in the trash, with the exception of my boots, which would clean up okay. The shower felt great as I stood under it. A while ago, Zee had changed the shower head from a standard one to one of those ones with the little round stones inside, which softened the water and gave a finer spray that didn’t sting as much when you stood under it. Zee was always coming home with random items like that. The kitchen was full of gadgets that she had obtained over time. Quite why she made a point of getting those things, I wasn’t sure. She said it was to make my life easier, but I think she just liked getting people to give her things. Once, she came home with this really expensive chess set that she had gotten some university professor to hand over. I spent a week teaching her the game until she could beat me every time. She didn’t always have the same luck with snakes and ladders, though. After the last time I beat her, she tore the board up with her teeth and vowed never to play the game again, calling it “a work of pure evil.”
After my long shower, I got dressed into gray jogging bottoms and a T-shirt that said on it: I’M BEST FRIENDS WITH A SUCCUBUS. Another gift from Zee. In the mirror above the sink, I checked out my face, pressing my bottom swollen lip with my fingers and wincing slightly, further wincing at my overall appearance. My face was a little on the gaunt side and I had dark circles under my blue eyes from burning the midnight oil constantly. Sleep was usually a luxury for me, as I always had too much work to do. My light brown hair was getting a little gray in places as well. Okay, a lot more gray, but given my lifestyle, I wasn’t surprised. Still, considering my run in with Bryon Black and his goons, I didn’t look too bad. “Another near miss,” I said to my reflection. “One of these days…” I allowed the sentence to trail off as I shook my head and left the bathroom.
In the living room, Zee was watching television as she sat on the Chesterfield, as far from the cat as she could get. “How’s our little friend?” I asked her as I went into the kitchen and poured two glasses of the Glenfiddich, downing mine in one before refilling the glass and heading back into the living room where I handed Zee hers.
“Your little fiend, you mean?” she said as she stared over at the cat. “It hasn’t moved since you left. It just keeps staring at…nothing. Is that normal for cats?”
“I don’t think so,” I said as I sat beside her. “I think it saw something that messed it up.”
“Like what? Humans having sex?”
“I dunno.” I reached my hand over and lightly stroked the cat’s head, frowning when it didn’t react at all. Not even a purr. “Strange. It can stay here on the sofa tonight. It might come around by morning.”
Sinking back into the sofa, I rested my head against the leather and sipped my scotch, satisfied at the smokey taste. “What a night.”
“What the hell happened?” Zee asked. “You were kidnapped?”
“Yeah. It was over that story I wrote about Bryon Black’s snuff business. You remember?”
“I remember. I take it he didn’t like the attention?”
“Guys like him never do,” I said before sipping on my whiskey. “He was planning on putting me in one of his snuff movies before I got him to bite me.”
Zee smiled. “Clever boy. So having my blood in you worked then?”
“Yeah, like a charm. It was damn messy, though.”
“I wish I’d been there to see it,” Zee said, resting her head on my shoulder. “How much pain was he in?”
“A lot. He screamed.”
“Oh, you’re making me all wet. Tell me more.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “Holes opened up all over his body.”
“Holes? Oh yeah…”
“He was like a leaky blood bag before he finally turned to mush and fell apart.”
“All over you?” she half-moaned.
“All over me.”
“You’re turning me on. Can we fuck?”
“Not now. I’m exhausted, and I’ve had a traumatic experience.”
“Suit yourself. You wouldn’t have all these traumatic experiences if you’d just let me be your bodyguard.”
“We’ve been over this enough times. I don’t need you bodyguarding me. I can take care of myself.”
“You were almost shot tonight.”
“I’m sure I would’ve managed.”
“Oh, okay. So you’re saying you don’t need me then?”
“You know that’s not what I’m saying, Zee. Of course I need you.”
“Just to make you feel better after you almost get killed, you mean?”
“I’m not having this conversation with you again, Zee. We both do our own thing. That’s the understanding.”
“I just worry about you, baby, that’s all. If you got killed—”
“I won’t.”
“You better not. This demon won’t be happy if you do.”
“I know,” I said. “Anyway, what about you? Where were you tonight?”
“I’ve been stalking a CEO the last couple days.”
“You make contact yet?”
“Not yet. I intend to soon. I’m not done watching y
et.”
“Is he interesting?”
“I don’t go after uninteresting people, as you know. I get nothing out of it.”
“So what’s the deal with this guy then?”
“He lives in Bedford, naturally, up in the Hills.”
“The Hills? Another reprobate, then?”
“He has his…interests.”
“I’m sure. Does he eat babies for breakfast?”
“Not that I know of. It wouldn’t bother me if he did.”
“Course it wouldn’t.” I sipped my whiskey. “So what’s his fate going to be? Drain or corruption?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Depends how entertained he keeps me.”
I nodded as I stared at the cop show on the TV, my eyes going to all the missing persons posters in the background of the set, the faces like lost souls no one even cared about anymore, and inevitably I thought of Ava, my lost sister.
Twelve years. Twelve years and still nothing. How could that be?
“Come on,” Zee said, grabbing my hand and squeezing as if she knew what I was thinking about. “Let’s go to bed, baby. I can help get you to sleep.”
I drank the whiskey left in my glass and put the glass on the coffee table, my eyes going to the missing person’s posters on the TV again as I wondered why all the faces looked like Ava. Then the screen went black as Zee turned the TV off and stood up.
“Come on, baby,” she said soothingly. “Let me take care of you.”
“All right,” I said with a wan smile as I took her hand, still thinking of Ava.
Zee smiled, and we both headed into the bedroom.
3
Zee followed through on her promise of helping me get to sleep, making me feel like the most important person in the world before sending me off to oblivion. I didn’t sleep for very long, though. A nasty dream in which Byron Black swallowed me whole woke me up with a start. Zee was fast asleep beside me, the covers barely concealing her lithe, naked form. The body wasn’t hers, of course. Like every other demon, Zee came to this world in spirit form, possessing a suicidal stripper too weak to resist Zee’s forced entry into her body. That’s what all demon spirits did when they escaped the confines of Hell. They looked for weak souls to possess—those on the verge of death, drug addicts, and people close to suicide. People with weak minds and spirits. Once the demon possessed them, the person was effectively dead and their soul became trapped within their own body, subsumed by the demon spirit. It took a while for the demon to adjust to their new vessel, and they often took on some of the characteristics of the human they possessed. Zee, being a succubus demon, could shapeshift as well, taking on the form most desirable to her chosen “victims.” Not being one of said victims, Zee kept her original human form when she was around me.