Hell Inc.

by C. M. Stunich

  “Hello there, darling,” a voice whispered in my ear. “Mommy missed you, and she's sorry for what she did earlier.” Crap.

  “Mom,” I said as nicely as I could manage, given the situation. “What are you doing here?” The knife ground further into my back causing me to let out a yelp.

  “Mommy's making sure you aren't trying to leave her for anyone else. You know that no one loves you as much as I do, sweetheart.” Her voice then took on a much more menacing tone. “No one.” Strong hands, too strong to be hers, grasped me by the throat and dragged me against a very large, very hairy chest. The person (or whatever it was) grabbing me had been careless and had caused the knife to cut a large gash along my back. The pain was sharp and immediate, and the heat of spilled blood traveled up and down my spine as it seeped into the fabric of my shirt.

  I tried to scream but was cut off by my mother, the woman who had given birth to me, stuffing a dirty rag down my throat. Great. Just great. You'd think I would have stopped being surprised by now. Not me, not Ginger. People never really change, do they? I realized as she stroked my cheeks with her plastic nails. This was the last straw. After I got out of this, I was cutting her off completely. Period. Briefly, I wondered where Levie and the sphinx were. They had to be around here somewhere, didn't they? Levie had said he would protect me from this stupid wish. And the black van that was rolling up to the curb kind of raised a red flag in my mind. This was definitely a situation where it would've been nice to have a fire demon on my side.

  The van door slid open and inside was a group of ... cows?

  What the hell, I wondered as I watched beady eyes and furry faces stare back at me. No, not cows I realized as I found muscular chests, beefy arms, and booted feet. Minotaurs. Now there was a new one. I was going to have to start keeping a list. You know, like bingo. A talking sphinx, check; a cute but totally rude demon, check; a mentally disturbed mother, double check; cow headed weight lifters on steroids, check; and – . I froze, a wave of anxiety rolling over me as something else leapt from the vehicle. And vampires, check. Bingo. Damn. And double damn.

  Even after the craze of vampire love and the slew of T-shirts that said, “Fangs are the new Gucci,” they still freaked me out. Pale people with weird teeth. That's what most people saw. I saw corpses with black eyes, bad accents, and an incurable need to wear lots and lots of cologne. Maybe it was to mask the smell of death? Maybe not. All I knew was that I hated vampires. Why is mom hanging with cows and leeches? I wondered as I saw her smile. Maybe she didn't know what they were. Maybe, like with Levie, all she saw were cute boys with nice abs and pretty skin. I'm talking about the vampires of course. As for the Minotaurs ... maybe they just looked like Mr. Olympia contestants. Either way, things did not look good for me. Mom wasn't just involved with drug addicts. Mom was involved with vampire/Minotaur drug addicts. And believe me, that was much, much worse.

  The man behind me (who was, I decided, actually furry rather than hairy) shoved me forward into the emaciated, bony chest of the vampire. I glanced up and cringed. This vampire was pretty unfortunate looking, as far as vampires go, and was leering down at me with an expression that made me ill. “Now, watch yourself there, Andrew, you don't want to go touching that one.” A deep voice rumbled from the driver's seat.

  “Why not?” Andrew whined and if I'd been able to, I would have punched him in the face. He had the pinched face of a rat and teeny-weeny eyes that he forgot to blink. He looked like a bank robber from the 1920's. In short, he was creepy as fuck.

  “Because she belongs to me,” Andrea snapped, glaring at Andrew and climbing into the backseat of the van next to a white and black spotted Minotaur. Andrew frowned and sniffed the air. He let go of one of my arms and looked at the red staining his hand.

  “Damn, Andrew, you still have the senses of a human. The rest of us could smell that blood the moment we pulled up.” The driver laughed at his own quip. Andrew frowned and sucked the blood from his middle finger.

  “I was only turned two weeks ago, Larry. You don't have to be so fucking rude.” I took the arm he'd let go of and attempted to punch him in the face. He grabbed my hand in mid air, as I was expecting, and I took the brief distraction as an opportunity to knee him hard in the balls. Andrew released my other arm as he doubled over in pain.

  I took off at a run though I wasn't expecting to get away. Not with so many supernaturals loaded into that van, but I was hoping that if I distracted them long enough, someone would come to my rescue. Unfortunately, my distraction was cut short as I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and slammed into the pavement hard enough to jar all of my bones and scrape my hands raw. A boot to my side knocked the air out of me and made the pain in my back even more severe. Rough hands jerked me up, and Andrew's nasally voice was suddenly in my ear.

  “You're going to fucking pay for that, you stupid bitch.” He shook me violently, and I was afraid of what was coming next.

  “Don't you hit her again, Andrew, or you're going to be answering to Liam when we get back. I told you, she's mine,” Andrea snapped though she didn't lift a finger to help me. And who the hell was Liam? Was Andrea referring to a drug lord ... or something else? I did not want to find out. Levie, I thought frantically. Where the hell are you? It's your job to protect me! I couldn't fight, couldn't even wish my way out of the situation because of the gag.

  Andrew scowled down at me, punched me in the sternum (which hurts), and knocked me out cold. Well now, everything was turning out to be just dandy. What better way to spend a night than with vampire drug addicts and your very own sociopathic mother?

  I remembered nothing about the van ride except for the smell of hay. Call me racist if you want, but the Minotaurs stank like cow manure and old socks. I decided that they were way less scary than the vampires although I bet those horns would hurt if they ever decided to level them on me. I woke slowly, painfully, as my stomach cried uncle and threatened me with nausea. Sounds were leaking under the door: people talking, laughing, cups clinking, doors slamming. It was all very normal but kind of creepy. I'd been kidnapped. By my mom. Never saw that one coming.

  I was lying on a rather uncomfortable bed that smelt as if it hadn't been washed in a while. I wriggled around, trying to move my face away from a very suspicious white stain that I'm pretty was something I'd seen on CSI. Bile rose in my throat, and I tried to cough, choking on the gag instead. It was soaked in my saliva and sat as a heavy, wet mass on my tongue. As the hellacious nature of my situation finally sunk in, tears pricked the corners of my eyes. I blinked them away. There was no time for crying now. What I needed to do was figure my way out of this mess.

  My hands were bound tightly behind my back with the same type of rope that was tied around my ankles. My fingers and toes were numb, twinging with needles as I tried to adjust myself into some semblance of a comfortable position. I wondered if Andrea would cut me free if she knew how much pain I was in. She'd said nice things but so far, she'd just done horrible ones. I tried not to expect much, hoped for it, but didn't expect it. The crazed look in her eyes was proof that she'd gone off the deep end. Her new found love for me seemed rather perverse in nature.

  Frankly, I was kind of embarrassed with myself. I'd let myself get kidnapped. By a bunch of drug addicts in a black van. How cliché was all of this supposed to get? And who was going to help me now? How long would it take that stupid secretary demon to come looking for me? I hadn't known Levie long enough to expect him to rush out to find me for friendship's sake, but it was his damn job. Apparently, he was as terrible a bodyguard as he was an administrative assistant.

  The sound of the door opening ripped me away from my thoughts. I turned my head to watch my mother and her on-again, off-again, drug addict boyfriend/pimp (I couldn't remember his name for the life of me) walk in. She sauntered over to the bed and sat down next to me, lightly brushing the hair from my forehead. I jerked my head away from her, and her motherly mask melted into fury. She grasped my face with her hand, h
er long nails digging into the flesh of my cheeks.

  “Don't you turn away from me,” she snarled and then slapped me lightly. “I am your mother. You will look at me.” Her face softened again and she sighed. “I love you so much, Ginger. I won't let anyone come between us ever again.” I stared at her, terror lacing my breast, as I had Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest flashbacks. She pulled my head onto her lap and began stroking my hair. Mr. No Name, who had been leaning against the door, coughed and put out his cigarette on a nearby chair. The fabric sizzled and smoked, making my eyes water.

  “What the fuck, Andrea? I don't have time to sit here and listen to you rattle off all this crap about your fucking daughter. If you want to sit here and talk all goddamn night, that's fine with me, but I ain't gonna sit here and listen.” Andrea didn't answer and the jerk, apparently fed up, wrenched the door open and left. I was happy to see him go. He stunk to high hell and was in desperate need of a shower and some deodorant. Andrea continued to stare down at me lovingly. I had a fleeting feeling of sympathy for Erin. This wish was based on her mother after all. Yikes.

  “Don't worry about him,” she cooed. “Mommy doesn't need a man in her life anymore. All that's important to me now is you.” The whole 'no wishing for people to fall in love' rule was really starting to make sense to me. I wasn't sure what she was planning to do with me, but I was pretty darn sure that I didn't want to stick around and find out. Andrea moved me off her lap and stood up. “I'm going to go and get Nathaniel,” she said, patting me lightly on the thigh. “After I told him about your little demon friend, he's been so eager to meet you. You just wait right here, and once we've got business out of the way, we can work on our relationship.”

  I could have sworn that my heart stopped for at least a full sixty seconds while my brain struggled to process what I had just heard. Demon friend? My head spun again, and I resisted the comforting blackness that was beckoning to me. Who was she talking about? Levie? If so, that meant that not only had she been stalking me, but she'd also been able to recognize what he was. My special talent apparently ran in the family.

  Thanks for sharing that with me, Mom, I thought at her as she blew me a kiss and exited the room with a skip and a hop that made my teeth hurt. I suppose I hadn't exactly shared my talents with her either, but then again, she had abandoned me as a child. And now I knew why, or at least suspected. I had thought about drugs before. It had been a brief thought, brought on by misery and loneliness, but I'd fought through it. She never had. I guess that explained why she was hanging out with supernaturals. Still, maybe I was jumping the gun. It was very possible that she was just high and delusional. When I was six, she told me the sky was falling and the world was about to end. I didn't sleep for a week.

  I wanted to cry or throw something, neither of which was a very viable option to me, so I waited until I was certain she wouldn't hear me moving around. I could run over this information in my head as much as I wanted as soon as I was out of here. I rolled off of the bed and onto the floor. The fall wasn't far but the impact hurt like hell. The injuries in my back and ribs saw to that. With some struggling and careful maneuvering, I was able to get myself into a seated position. I figured the best place to start looking for a knife or something else to cut my way out of these ropes would be the nightstand drawer. Clever Ginger, now, your only problem is figuring out how to get the drawer open. Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to even try.

  The man who entered the room was, to put it nicely, geriatric. The skin on his face hung like wet laundry, and his elbows and knees were bony and crooked. But his eyes were strong and so was his magic. It swarmed into the room like a dust storm. Tempestuous and angry, it swirled around me and gave me goose bumps. He was a vampire. A very, very old vampire. Despite the rumors, they do age, just slowly. Oh yeah, and they're immortal. Sounds kind of shitty to me, but hey, to each their own.

  Andrea followed him into the room with a ... wheelchair and stood sniveling in the corner next to the burnt chair. Behind her, a gaggle of younger vampires followed, Minotaur goonies in tow. It was kind of funny in an I-could-die-at-any-moment sort of a way. No matter how lame the bad guys are, they can still kill you.

  The man sniffed the air like a dog, his bulbous nose twitching. Then he wrinkled his face in disgust. So I'd been to yoga, so what. I'd worn deodorant (unlike my mom's boyfriend). I didn't smell that bad.

  “Why – ” he began, pausing to cough. “Did you find it prudent to drag a demon back to our factory?” He turned and faced my mother, causing his henchmen to tremble in fear. For an old guy, he was pretty scary. Magic doesn't take strong bones, just a keen intellect and some power. You either were born with it or you weren't. Old Dude had been born with a shitload.

  “I – I – ” Andrea struggled to find words. I didn't blame her. She'd spent most of her life on coke. It was hard to remain literate after that. “This is my daughter, Ginger. She isn't a demon, but she's been mating with one.” Old Dude turned back to me with a raised eyebrow. So my mother did see supernaturals. And she'd stalked me. And she'd said mating. I struggled in protest.

  “Nathaniel, I need your help.” A man in a glittering red top (think Dorothy's shoes in The Wizard of Oz) stormed into the room and stared at me with greasy brown eyes. He had a crooked lip with a really bad goatee. Plus, he was wearing cologne. Typical vampire. “I can't get the fax machine to work. Can we please just get a computer? I think it's hurting the business.” He cocked his head to the side and waited while Nathaniel coughed again.

  “I'm busy Liam, can't you see I'm working here?” Liam didn't look bothered by that fact at all. Instead, he strolled right up to the bed and took my face in his hands.

  “So pretty,” he breathed, and I swear, I almost threw up. His breath was worse than the Cyclops' I'd met at Target. It was like rotten cheese and burnt rubber. “New client?” Client? I wondered furiously. I'm bound and gagged. Do I look like a client?

  He locked his eyes on mine, and for a moment, they were beautiful, bright and velvety, rich, sensual. Power rolled over me, heady and alluring, begging me to come inside. Then all of a sudden, it stopped. His eyes were back to dirty brown. The new guy blinked furiously and released me, taking a step back and nearly bowling over the elderly Nathaniel.

  “What on earth – ” Nathaniel cut him off.

  “Andrea,” he cast a glance over his shoulder. “Brought this girl here. You're responsible for her behavior, Liam. Take care of this fiasco. And find out what the demon wants.” And then he turned around and hobbled out of the room. One of the backup vampires took the wheelchair from my mother and followed him. The Minotaurs stayed, fanning out around the doorframe menacingly. Honestly, it was pretty scary.

  Andrea was shaking terribly now, like she was in the throes of a fever. Her eyes were wide and looked just about ready to explode from her head.

  “This girl's magic smells like demon,” Liam growled vehemently, turning to Andrea and grasping her by the throat. He walked her back and slammed her into the wall, dislodging a painting of a yellow cottage. “Business is business, I suppose, so I can't fault your tenacity.” Then he squeezed. Did I mention that some of the rumors are true? Vampires really do have supernatural strength. “The routine was cute, Andrea, but this time, you've just cost yourself a job.” My mother struggled, kicking her legs furiously while I screamed behind a wet gag and watched in terrible slow motion as her throat was crushed.

  The sound was unlike any other I'd ever heard before. It was like the squishing sound that wet clay makes with the horrible crunching of bone. I had to stifle the vomit in my throat before I ended up choking on the gag and killing myself.

  The vampire dropped my mother's corpse to the floor in a wet, bloody heap amongst the snickers of the others in the room. I tried not to look at it, but I couldn't help myself. It was like how most people reacted to a horrific car accident. I didn't cry (I might later), but right then, the danger of the situation seemed more important. The silly bad guys d
idn't seem so silly anymore. Now they were just scary. Rhinestone shirts, bad facial hair, and terrible lines aside.

  Liam turned his attention back to me, scowling and wiping his hands on his pants. “You got a human to sneak you in here. How clever. Though I suppose I should have expected this from Infernix.” I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but he didn't give me a chance to think on it. Liam stepped up to me and grabbed me by the hair. Pain ripped through my scalp, but I forced myself not to make a sound. I didn't want him to have the pleasure of hearing it. I'm certain he was the type of person who really got off to that sort of thing; he just seemed like that kind of a guy. “Go on then,” he growled. “What do you want? A merger? Stock options?”

  I stared back at him, my heart thumping painfully in my chest, and tried to think past a torrent of raw emotions. He thought I was a demon. Fine. I could play that part. If it would get me out of here alive, I would do anything. I narrowed my eyes and tried to look haughty. Think about Levie, I told myself, trying to puff out my chest.

  “If you're close with their CEO, then you must be important. What do you want with us? We're just a small, family owned business.” CEO? Family business? What the hell was he going on about? There was no doubt in my mind that drugs were involved. None. He was crazy as hell. “Get up and let's discuss business matters,” he snapped, glaring at the Minotaurs as if this was somehow their fault. The man had just murdered my mother in front of me, and now here he was trying to have a conversation.

  Fuck you. I thought. When Levie gets here ... “Fine then,” he snarled, stomping his foot like a two year old having a temper tantrum. “If you're going to be like that, you can wait in my office. We need this room for clients. I'll see what Daddy – ” he paused. “I mean what Nathaniel wants to do with you.” Nice. A father and son drug cartel. What had my mother gotten herself mixed up in? Liam spun away and kicked my mother's corpse on his way out. I am going to fucking kill you, I thought at him as he disappeared from sight.