by Gary Jonas
“She’s not cruel.”
“My scars say otherwise.”
Before I could head to the back, the front door opened, and Helen stepped into the shop. She spotted me instantly, and smiled.
“I see you found the place,” I said.
Her smile didn’t waver. “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
“I rock at obvious stuff.”
“He also rocks at being rude,” Lakesha said, approaching Helen. “I’m Lakesha. Welcome to my shop.”
They shook hands.
“Thank you. I’m Helen. I don’t know how much Brett has told you.”
“Nothing.”
“I said we had a client.”
“Client suggests payment,” Helen said. “You didn’t say anything about paying last night.”
“This is on the house,” I said. “Well, on my father anyway.”
“All right,” Helen said, and moved to the counter where Isis sat. “Is the demon here?”
“I hope you don’t mean Isis,” Lakesha said.
“Isis is the cat,” I said.
“Hi, Isis,” Helen said, and the damn cat allowed Helen to pet her without complaint. “Is the demon here?”
“Yes.”
“What’s this talk of a demon?” Lakesha asked.
“Gift from my old man.”
“And you’re just now telling me about it?”
“He’s mostly harmless. Red dude stands four feet tall and likes to make my life a living hell.”
“Then he can’t be all bad,” Lakesha said. “What kind of demon?”
“A nuisance demon,” Helen said, and her eyes drifted toward him. She looked away, and I once again suspected she could actually see him. What game was she playing here?
“Pain in the ass demon,” I said.
“You’ll think pain,” Kevin said.
Lakesha went to one of the display cases on the far wall. She took down what looked like a magnifying glass and held it up to her left eye. She scanned the room and stopped when she was facing Kevin.
“By the light of the moon and the dark of the sun,” Lakesha said, “display your visage as though I’m the only one.” She lowered the glass and walked over to Kevin. “What’s your name, demon?”
“You can see me now?” he asked.
“Your lips moved, but I couldn’t hear you. Hang on.” She walked to one of the bookshelves, scanned the books until she found the one she wanted. She took it down, flipped through the pages.
“Is it book club time?” I asked.
“Hush, child,” Lakesha said.
“I’m not a child.”
“Prove it by acting your age.”
“You prove it.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Kevin said.
“I didn’t have a comeback,” I said, though admitting it bugged me. Hey, it happens to the best of us. One would likely occur to me in an hour, by which time it would be irrelevant.
Lakesha tapped a page, and looked over at Kevin. “While the air is stirred, make silent voices heard.”
“When overhead flies a bird, don’t get hit by a falling turd,” I said. “Your witch spells sound stupid.”
“The words are just anchors of my intent, Brett. The magic comes from within and without.”
“Without making sense, you mean.”
“She means the sigils,” Kevin said, pointing at the ceiling.
I looked up. The ceiling was covered with soft swirls that looked like thick paint sloshed on to dry, but now that I really looked, I saw there were all kinds of wards and sigils worked into the design. “Huh,” I said. “I never noticed that.”
“There’s a surprise,” Kevin said.
“Most people don’t notice,” Lakesha said. “That’s kind of the point. Okay, demon, what’s your name?”
“He goes by Kevin,” I said.
Lakesha rolled her eyes. “I see he’s already influencing you.”
“Shh!” Kevin said.
“Really, dude?” I asked, offended. “You zap me, insult me, wake me up, and hex me too?”
He put a hand on his heart. “Demon,” he said by way of explanation.
“Name,” Lakesha said.
“Kevinaticulus.”
Lakesha drew a symbol in the air, and pointed at him. “Begone, Kevinaticulus, by the beard of Odin and the phallus of Osiris.”
Kevin tapped his foot. “You can’t banish me, witch. I’m tied to Brett the Wonderdog here.”
“Courtesy of my father,” I said. “Can you show me that spell? Maybe if I do it, he’ll go away.”
Kevin laughed. “Take your shot, loser boy.”
“Follow my directions,” Lakesha said. “Do as I do.”
“Ready,” I said.
I followed her exact motions on drawing the symbol in the air, then I said, “Begone, Kevinaticulus, by the beard of Odin and the phallus of Osiris!”
“Whiskers and wooden dicks aren’t going to cut it, you dope,” Kevin said. “Has to be your own magic, not witchcraft.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because wizard magic and witch magic aren’t compatible.”
“Nonsense,” I said.
“You did something wrong,” Lakesha said. “You always do things wrong.”
“So it’s my fault?” I asked.
“Naturally.”
“I told you,” Kevin said. “A regular spell won’t cut it. You have to use your own personal magic to send me home. Otherwise, I’ll keep right on pestering you.”
“This is all very interesting,” Helen said, “but I’m lost.”
Lakesha handed the glass to Helen. “Look through this. Do you see the demon?” She pointed at Kevin.
Helen looked through the glass then nodded. “He’s very red.” She didn’t have a real reaction to seeing him. Was that because she could see him without the glass? Or was it just that she was a siren who had lived for thousands of years while looking as hot as Jessica Alba?
“Red?” Kevin asked. “That’s the best you’ve got?” He turned around, pulled down his undies and mooned us.
Helen kicked him in the ass and knocked him into the air like a soccer ball. He landed in a heap and slid against a bookshelf.
“Cheater,” he said.
Lakesha studied Helen. “You can make contact with a nuisance demon?”
“She’s a siren,” I said. “Not the kind on a police car, but the kind who guides men to wreck their ships on the rocks.”
“I haven’t done that in centuries,” Helen said.
Lakesha studied her and frowned. “You’re a siren, but you can’t see a nuisance demon?”
She shrugged.
“That’s not an answer,” Lakesha said.
“You could always see him, right?” I asked.
“What makes you think that?”
I poked her in the side and she laughed. “You looked at him in the bar when you took the stage,” I said.
“Don’t poke me,” she said. “I’m ticklish.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have told me that,” I said and started tickling her. “You just happened to be able to kick Kevin when he went to peek under your dress.”
“Stop it,” she said, laughing and trying to twist away from me.
I pinned her in the corner, and kept tickling her sides. She squirmed pleasantly, and tears rolled down her cheeks. “Then you looked right at him when you came in here today.”
“I can’t breathe!” She slapped my hands away.
“Admit you can see him,” I said.
“All right, I admit it. Just stop tickling me!”
I stopped.
She wiped tears from her cheeks and took a few deep breaths. “I can catch sight of him from the corner of my eye, or if I focus my concentration on him. But it’s not very reliable since he was able to lift my dress in the alley without me seeing him coming.”
“The spell should work for you,” Lakesha said. “Repeat after me, making the same hand movements, and you�
��ll be able to see him and hear him without having to focus on him.”
They went through the nonsense about light of the moon, and being heard like a bird turd landing on the roof of a car.
“Look at him now, without adding any magical juice to it,” Lakesha said.
Helen smiled and pointed at Kevin. “There you are, you little shit. Now you can’t sneak up on me to look up my dress,” she said.
Kevin leered at her. “We’ll see about that.”
“Will that spell work for Sabrina and Michael?”
Lakesha hesitated while she considered. “Yes for Sabrina, but I don’t know about Michael. It’s worth a shot.”
“What about on mundanes like my bandmates?”
Lakesha shook her head. “Probably not.”
“But you’re not sure?”
“Depends on whether or not they have any connection with a magical bloodline in the last few generations.”
“And there’s no way to just make the son of a bitch visible to everyone?”
“No.”
“I can do that,” Kevin said. “But why would I want to let everyone gaze upon my glorious visage?” He scratched his balls as he spoke.
“Why indeed?” I asked.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You want to protect a woman you just met from a god?” Lakesha asked after I explained the situation to her. Lakesha, Helen, and I were in the back room of the shop, seated around a small table Lakesha used for Tarot readings. There weren’t any cards on the table right now, though. Instead, the table was covered by a purple cloth that draped all the way to the floor.
“Well, we’re talking about a third-rate god at best,” I said. “And protect is a strong word since it’s really just helping her tell him she won’t sign a recording contract.”
“Something she should have done herself.”
“I did do that myself,” Helen said. “He won’t take no for an answer. And Apollo is not a third-rate god.”
Lakesha sighed. “On the positive side, he’s supposed to be a lord of light and healing.”
“He used to be,” Helen said. “But after centuries of being forgotten or confined to the realms of mythology, his disposition isn’t quite so sunny anymore.”
“As long as we’re not trapped in an episode of Star Trek, we should be okay,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” Helen asked.
“It’s a TV show,” I said.
“I don’t watch TV,” she said.
“They say it rots the brain,” Lakesha said. “And Brett here watches far too much of it, which explains a lot.”
“I thought you liked Star Trek,” I said.
“I do,” Lakesha said, “but you can’t expect me to pass up an easy opportunity to smack you down. That said, I do know the episode you mean. It was called ‘Who Mourns for Adonais,’ and I always loved it.”
“Shouldn’t it be called ‘Who Mourns for Apollo?’” I asked.
Lakesha rolled her eyes. “The title is from Shelley.”
“I don’t know her.”
“Percy,” Lakesha said. “The poet. Husband of Mary Shelley?”
“Frankenstein,” I said. “Cool! But Apollo isn’t Frankenstein, though he does throw around lightning in that show.”
“Never mind,” Lakesha said.
“Does the real Apollo throw lightning around?” I asked.
“He’d rather throw plagues around,” Helen said. “Haven’t you read The Iliad?”
“I’m waiting for the movie.”
Lakesha reached over and smacked me upside the head.
“Hey!” I said.
“You know the story,” Lakesha said. “The Trojan War.”
“A movie about condoms? Is it a porno?”
“Did you see Troy with Brad Pitt?”
“I thought Brad Pitt was with Angelina Jolie. Who is Troy and when did Brad start batting for the other team?”
Lakesha moved to hit me again, and I raised my arms to block her attack.
“Kidding,” I said. “I’m not an idiot. I haven’t read the stupid book, but I know about Helen of Troy and the wooden horse and all that crap. And yes, I saw the movie Troy, but I don’t remember it having Apollo.”
“They didn’t want any gods in their movie.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “Sean Bean didn’t die in it, so that has to be divine intervention.”
Lakesha couldn’t argue with that one. Point scored. I leaned back in my chair with a smug smile. I should have known better, of course.
As soon as I leaned back, Isis scratched me through the open back of the chair.
“Ow!” I jumped out of the chair, damn near knocked the table over, and spun around, holding my lower back. I checked to see if I was bleeding. No blood.
Kevin and Isis sat on the floor behind the chair, and both were grinning.
“Isis is a good cat,” Kevin said.
“You told her to scratch me?”
Kevin shook his head. “I didn’t have to. It was just my idea to sneak into the room behind you. I was going to jump up and give a sudden yell to make you shit your pants, but Isis struck first.”
“Sit your ass down, Brett,” Lakesha said. “And stop teasing the cat.”
“I didn’t tease her.”
“You tempted her by leaning back.”
“I’ve had enough of this bullshit,” I said. “Helen, when is Apollo going to get here?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“And you’re meeting him somewhere?”
“He wants me to meet him at Oracle Studios over on Avenue S at nine in the morning.”
“Forget that,” I said. “Reschedule for two in the afternoon.”
“He won’t reschedule.”
“I can’t do mornings,” I said.
Lakesha smiled. “Kevin?”
“Yeah?” Kevin said.
“Think you can wake Brett up at seven thirty in the morning?”
“Of course.”
Lakesha smiled. “In that case, I’m all in.”
“Oh no you don’t,” I said.
“Oh yes I did.”
“Great,” Helen said. “I’ll say you two are my agent and my manager.”
“Which of us is the agent?”
Helen hesitated. “Brett, you’ll be the agent, and Lakesha will be my manager.”
“So I’m in charge,” I said nodding like a proud rooster.
“No,” Helen said. “You’re a negotiator. Lakesha and I are in charge.”
Lakesha pushed away from the table. “All right,” she said. “I’m going to go call Sabrina to tell her she needs to help get Brett moving in the morning.”
“Well, if I’m just a negotiator,” I said, “I don’t need to be there at nine. Why would anyone want to see the world at that ungodly hour?”
“Apollo is a god, so for him it’s a godly hour,” Helen said.
CHAPTER NINE
“Am I bugging you?”
Something poked me in the ribs. I swatted at whatever it was and turned over in bed.
“Am I bugging you?”
More poking.
Swat, missed, didn’t care.
“Am I bugging you?”
“Yes,” I said and pulled a pillow over my head.
Poke, poke, poke. “It’s seven o’clock, Brett. Time to get up.”
“Fuck off,” I said.
Poke, poke. “Boop, boop,” Kevin said with a high-pitched voice as he stabbed me in the side with his finger. “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.”
“Cut it out!” I threw the pillow at him, and rolled onto my back.
“This ought to wake your lazy ass up,” he said.
I felt pressure on my chest as Kevin stepped on me. Just in case he planned to jump on my stomach, I tightened my muscles, and in case he wanted to rack me, I moved my leg to protect the family jewels. I just wanted to sleep.
Something wet splashed on my face and kept pouring in a steady stream.
As soon as I opened my mouth to yell at him, liquid poured onto my teeth and tongue. I opened my eyes to see the dumbass demon pissing on me.
I screamed and tried to knock his head off, but my hand passed through him. How could he be solid enough to piss on me, but not solid enough to hit? Magic sucked.
I rolled out of bed and spit on the floor. “Aaarrrrghhh!” I yelled and raced to the bathroom. I cranked on the water faucet, leaned down and filled my mouth. I rinsed it around and spit it out, then refilled my mouth and spit again. I washed my face, and kept spitting.
Kevin crept up behind me. “Problem?”
“Fuck you!”
“Got you up, didn’t it?”
I squeezed half a tube of toothpaste directly into my mouth, and rolled it around with my tongue, then spit the wad into the wastebasket by the toilet. The water in the sink was still running, and I bent to slurp more water, slosh it around, spit again. I might never get my mouth clean.
I pointed at the demon. “One way or another, you’re gonna pay for that!”
“Totally worth it,” he said.
I tried to kick him, but my foot went right through him. Damn. How did Helen make contact with him? Could she teach me?
“Careful,” Kevin said. “Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake you up with a fudge surprise, only it won’t be fudge.”
I slammed the door in his face.
He stepped through the door. “That was rude,” he said.
“Out!” I said, pointing at the door.
“Isis said I should shit in your shoes,” he said.
I yanked the door open. “Get the hell out of here, you nasty little bastard!”
“Make me.”
I wanted to smash his face in, but I couldn’t touch him. It wasn’t fair. I stepped out of the bathroom, and stared at my bed. The pillow and part of the mattress were sopping wet.
“Goddamn it,” I said. I pulled the cover off the bed, and stripped the sheets from the mattress.
Sabrina appeared in the doorway, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She wore a thin nightgown that on any woman other than my cousin might have been a turn-on.
“Damn, Brett,” she said as she stared at the mess. “Did you wet the bed?”
“No!”
She walked over to the bed, sniffed the air. “You did,” she said. “You’re thirty years old and you still wet the bed. Wow.”