“You know I have a name,” my roommate said, talking over her.
“What?” I replied, but quickly got a dark look instead.
“—but he did a good stitch job on my right knee. Check it.” Petty proudly flashed the sew-job her boyfriend gave her to keep the skin around her shoulder blade intact. It was stitched with neon-colored string with tiny hearts linked at both ends.
Even Franklin started talking in between the globs of blood streaming from his lips. He was cursing, or least seemed to be, in a language I don’t know. My roommate reached back, and without a care in the world, tore another one of Franklin’s black arms off. To me he looked like that cruel kid who plucks the legs off of bugs, you know, just as practice for his future niche as a sociopath.
“We are not focusing,” I snapped at both of them. Dealing with demons should have been easier with more help. That’s the only reason I decided to even allow these two to help fix the whole Apocalypse thing that I had started. That and they were both accomplices to the crime. But they were also both self-centered and immortal which, in my big ass book of horrible combinations on this earth, was right up there with the worst this world has to offer. Right up there with talkative cabbies.
“What time does Mom and Dad get back?”
“Three hours,” Petty replied after checking her phone. “Maybe less, depending on what the 7 train is doing tonight.”
I glared over at my roommate. “D.”
“Yup.”
“We have kind of a mess here.”
“Yup.”
He got up and closed his eyes. And when he reopened them, he opened his mouth. Black, shark-like teeth protruded outward like a steel trap. Seeing his doom, Franklin started screaming, pleading. The beak of a black crow peeked out of his broken neck, but D slammed into it with his spaded tail.
Ever since the nonsense from two weeks ago, when we were dealing with parrots and politics, he had been going by that name. He had also been consistently hostile toward me, which had never been the case before. As I watched him pick up and drag Franklin to his room to be devoured, I told myself that there was a time that I thought that D was protecting me. Ever since he got into this new form, I wasn’t sure what team he was playing for.
What made me even more worried was this last Shade and what it would do to him. His body was already going through its odd metamorphosis. A small column of smoke wrapped itself around his head and neck. His horns were growing right before my eyes. His wings sported edges of pure flame. I had just assembled an all-powerful demon right in my living room.
“Anyone ever tell you not to stare,” D called over, coldly. His eyes were changing. There were red rings encircling his black iris’. Above his head, a ghostly halo of black energy was forming under my apartment lights.
I wanted to say something at that time. Tell him thank you. This was it, the last demon we would have to worry about. I wanted to ask him what was going on. But before I could muster the strength for it all, he just flicked his tail and the blood leapt off of the walls and ceiling, forming a bubble that he plucked out of the air and began chewing like bubblegum. The glass from the windows snapped together in midair, and the furniture shook itself to the right shape. He left the place looking like we hadn’t just intensely mauled a possessed man in the middle of my living room.
“D?”
“I’m not doing the dishes,” he spat.
I cleared my throat to speak, but I couldn’t find the words. D’s change was getting worse and worse. He was eight-feet tall. He sported tusks. He had black claws that could pluck out my guts with ease.
“Uh, Grey,” he said in a thunderous voice. “Want to tell me what this about? I gotta be someplace.”
“I—”
Suddenly, this form of D collapsed into itself and swirled into a black vortex of balls of pulsating light. Petty gripped my arm as layer after layer of skin peeled away from my roommate as the energy he was firing in every direction shook the entire building.
And then it all snapped into place.
A man with black hair and ripped black jeans stood where the unholy black hole had appeared. He had slicked black hair and a sharp face. His skin was red, but not “devil red” … more like slightly over-tanned. He was my age, maybe older.
D slid his hands into his pocket and groaned. “I have to get going,” he told us in a deeper voice than I had expected. He kept his head down as he passed me and closed the door of his room behind him.
The thought of this new, adult D scared the living crap out of me.
Petty was thinking something completely different.
“Holy crap! He’s hot!”
I closed her mouth for her. “I’m not listening to this. Start cleaning before Mom and Dad get home.”
Petty and I got to work on what was left over from the battle: a few broken plates and some ceiling plaster. As I swept, I glanced over and saw my sister kneeling down to fix our rug. Just below her collarbone, her skin was peeled open. Behind the flap, I could see the faint start of a ribcage but nothing else. No blood, no organs. Just darkness inside and bones. Like someone had stored a science project in a closet.
“Petty,” I said, and made a gesture to her top.
My sister quickly tried to fold it back into place. Laughing nervously, she told me, “Just don’t make ’em like they used to.
I tried to get back to work but Petty was still eyeing me.
“Problem?”
“No. No problem. Like absolutely nothing. Everything is fine.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
I went back to sweeping. There were bloodcurdling screams coming from D’s room, the sounds of more arms being torn out. We just talked over it.
“You’ve changed a lot, you know?”
“No I haven’t.”
“Yes you have. The Mandy I know would have never put herself out there like you did tonight. I mean, c’mon. The bar. The makeup, the dress. And here you are! You’ve done it! You caught all the Shades and life can get back to something … semi-quasi-normal-ish.”
When I didn’t respond, she just managed a very forced hooray with a side order of jazz hands. “You should be proud of that, Mandy.”
“Mhm.”
I wanted to agree with her. I wanted to be able to look back and say that things had changed, that I had changed in some shape or form, but most of it was hard to see at that moment. I had caught the last crow— Shade #5— with only marks from the guy’s fingers still burning my neck and all of my appendages in order. I should have been happy. Fucking ecstatic, even. But had I really sealed away the evil? Could my life go back to the semi-ordinary? It was all kind of … simple.
Sure, my sister was still dead and possessed, a Shade was still living out of my back room while my parents were there, and they guy who needed to tell me what my next steps were was in a coma. But other than these things, it was now over. Wasn’t it?
Seeing that I had gotten lost in my own thoughts, Petty chucked one of the pillows at my head.
“So we should hang out. Soon.”
“Hang out?” I stayed focused on my sweeping, avoiding her gaze.
“Yeah, you know. Catch up. Talk a bit. Like what are you doing tomorrow?”
“Things.”
“You’re always doing things. When’s a day when you’re thing-less? Thing-lite?”
I tossed the broom aside. “If you haven’t been paying attention, my plate’s always full, Petty. Always. My life is a fuckery buffet and I’m perpetually in line for seconds.”
It had been a while since I spent time with her, but Petty changing the subject so quickly told me that I had said something wrong.
“You and D are still at it?”
I tied my hair back and kept that answer to myself, choosing instead to fetch a dustpan. I didn’t want to g
et distracted by any of it. D and I weren’t on speaking terms anymore, but maybe it was for the best. With the final demon caught, and all of the biblical revelation stuff TBD, what was I really looking for now? A friend? I’ve had my fill of people. And it wasn’t like D was going to stay around now that he was an all-powerful incarnate of evil. I should have been happy about it, too. I should have been freaking elated. But even without saying any of that, Petty could pick up the concern on my face.
I could tell that she was going to go there when we both caught a faint jingling of keys that fumbled with the front door lock and then fell to the floor. It was like we were kids again and were caught doing something that we shouldn’t be. Petty and I started running around in circles, frantically trying to fix the furniture that had been tipped over.
“Honestly,” I heard my mom’s muffled voice say, “you and those keys.”
“Yeah, yeah,” my dad replied in a huff. “There’s just so many of them on the daggone ring. Mailbox, front door, outside door. This key’s for a lock I don’t even have anymore. This key … I don’t even know what this key’s for!”
Petty was shaking and pointing silently at her face. There was no way we could pass that off with our parents, so I quickly turned her around and started shoving her into the bathroom.
“Hurry up, I’ve been wanting to use the bathroom since we got on the train.”
I caught Petty by the hair in mid-push, and spun her around. She reached for D’s door but we didn’t have time to knock on it. Dad was just turning the key as I flung Petty out of the window, her hair disappearing as the front door swung open.
“Mom. Dad. Hey. How are ya?”
Instead of looking happy to see me, my parents were aghast. My dad mouthed a silent oh my god. My mother screamed and covered her mouth.
Had I missed something? A broken wall? A body part? Don’t tell me it was another bone protrusion.
“Mandy,” my mother exclaimed, flushed in red. “You’re wearing a dress!”
CHAPTER 30
“I’m just saying, for years and years, people have been talking about it like it’s some big thing. It wasn’t. Nowhere close.”
My mother just shook her head. “He’s been complaining about this since he made us walk out of the show early,” she told me.
“It had a bunch of people dressed as animals,” my dad said to drive his point home.
“It’s called Cats,” my mom assured him. “It had cats in it. Who goes to see a show called Cats and complains about there being cats in it?”
My dad, frustrated, put his fork down. “I’m not complaining that there were cats in it. I’m complaining that there were only cats in it. No story. No plot. Just cats dancing. If I wanted to see three hours of prancing felines, I would feed PCP to the strays down the block. Cheaper tickets and far more enjoyable. How much did you pay for those tickets, Mandy?”
I could tell Petty was loving this. Sitting across from me at the dinner table, she kept shoving food into her mouth just to muffle her laughter. She and I were thinking the same thing: this was like old times.
“Don’t mind grumple-stilskin over there, loves. Ever since we got back …” She put both of her hands up like she didn’t want/need to say more.
My parents were retired teachers—my mom elementary and my dad college. My mom retired early and homeschooled me when our zone school was no longer an option. My father was that gruff professor that because of his dark skin and silvered beard, looked like the kind of guy who would start you off with an ‘F’ and leave it up to you to impress him. But he was a sweetheart. He just asked for things to make sense.
And obviously, he was a dog person.
My mom was that small Jewish lady with brown to almost red curls who let you skip her in the checkout line just to be nice. She would also count your items in the 10 Items or Less line and shout you out if you’re not following protocol.
Having them around this late in the game was nerve wracking, but also sort of a godsend. I needed this. Really. Besides the constant freakout I was going through having them around 24/7, I needed to remember what it was all about. What I had written my soul a one-way ticket to hell for. My family. Mom and Dad. Petty … when she wasn’t being annoying. Catching the Shades had been both psychologically scarring and emotionally draining. I had seen so many things, met so many people, and I didn’t hate most of them. My tiny little world had seen its own little Revelations, but at least the world would go on. I felt like I’d lived more in that short span than in my entire life.
I looked around that table and thought that if I had to make that choice again, if everything had to hang on that big fat decision I made over a month ago, would I do it? Would I make it all over again?
Hell no. No fucking way. Not in a million years.
“Someone came looking for you, Mandy,” my father said.
Gooseflesh.
“Someone came here? For me? Like … who?”
Dad shrugged and Mom took over. “Tall young lady. Model-like. Super hot.”
Petty dropped her fork and Dad grumbled, “Not this again.”
I buried my face in my hands. “What am I missing here?”
“Your mother …”
“Mom thinks …”
“Hush, you two.” My mom grabbed me by the wrist. “I might be a lesbian.”
If I didn’t know that it would send me directly to the pits of fire and torment, I wanted to die right there and then.
“Honey,” my dad started to say.
“Part-time lesbian. Only part-time. I’ve been reading about it. Some call it ‘late blooming’.”
“Late blooming? You’re fifty-three, Nora. Missing the Q10 bus by ten minutes, that’s late. Deciding to use the crosswalk when that red hand is up, that’s late. What you’re describing is so late that it’s early for something else.” Flustered, my father turned to me and explained. “She spotted one of our guides, one, got a little crush on her, and now she’s picking out what she’s wearing to Queens Pride.”
“She was adorable.”
“And she’s been hitting on anything in a skirt since we’ve been back.”
My mom dabbed the side of her mouth with a napkin and whispered, “Hater.”
Mortified, Petty excused herself as her cellphone rang. My parents and I sat in silence listening to the conversation.
When she got back, she let us know what we already knew.
“Gotta go. Date night.”
“Is that why you’re wearing so much makeup?” Mom asked as Petty hugged her. “Seriously, Petunia. Next time, you’re going to stay for all of dinner. Sans the makeup and sunglasses.”
She hugged Dad and of course he offered to give her somewhere to crash. “Mandy rented out the back room, but you got a place to stay here. I don’t understand why you’re in a hotel if your family’s right here.”
“Just until I go back,” she told him. “Not going to intrude.”
“Hmm. Fine. You need any money?”
Mandy paused. She was looking at me, planning her response. I took the knife I was eating with and made a slow pass against my neck. Zombie puppet or not, I wanted her to picture the amount of thread needed to fix a decapitation.
“No!” she shouted. And then dialed it back. “No, Dad. All good. I’ll stop by tomorrow.” And she left.
Checking the time for myself, I realized that I had missed a call from the hospital. I wolfed down the rest of my food. My parents’ dishes were empty, so I cleaned up for them and slipped them into the sink.
“We’re proud of you.”
My father’s words collided with my chest. The fresh bruises from my latest tangle with a demon tingled.
“You what now?”
My mom smiled at me from the table as my dad stood up. “We didn’t put you in the best of situations when we left. We admit it.
We kind of wanted you to fly on your own for a little bit. But it wasn’t easy for us.”
Behind his back, Mom pointed to my dad, mimed him crying, and then him crying so much that it filled up buckets that needed to be thrown out.
“It wasn’t without some screw-ups,” I replied, averting my gaze.
“You lent your sister some money, and it came back to bite you,” he said. “You did what you had to. Got yourself a roommate when I know having to talk to people is your least favorite thing in this world. And this city just so happens to go completely nuts all of a sudden.”
I kept a straight face.
“Thanks, Dad. And I promise it’s only temporary. D is moving out at the end of the month. I’ll move back into my room, and everything will be … back to normal.”
My dad smiled and shushed me away from doing the dishes.
I had somewhere to be, too.
And for some odd reason, I was really looking forward to going.
CHAPTER 31
Finn’s was always filled with teachers in the late week. The bar hung a dusty chalkboard sign outside, dubbing its special happy hour “Thirsty Thursdays.” For three hours, you could enjoy five dollar beers—all you had to do was prove you needed alcohol because you taught in one of New York’s public schools. Of course, the bartender could tell that Donaldson and I weren’t teachers. We could barely be in charge ourselves let alone burgeoning minds. But he still felt the need to question us about our areas of study.
“Poetry,” was Donaldson’s answer.
When I was asked, I said, “21st Century Occult. First round, please.” While the guy flipped open both caps and passed over our beers, I figured out how to keep our previous conversation going. “Your turn, chum.”
Donaldson looked up from his beer. “Okay. What fictional place would you want to have brunch in and why?”
I didn’t even hesitate. “Mordor.”
“Mordor?”
“It’s the worst place on earth. Imagine ordering food there. Big flaming eye in the middle of the place and still lousy service.”
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