Speak of the Devil

by Jena Gregoire

  “Insolent filth,” the woman spat, turning from Dez in a flash of movement. She spun back around just as fast and lunged, stopping with her face only inches away from Dez’s. “You are a fool!” she growled. “This choice proves you are far more like them than you care to admit.”

  Dez was momentarily taken aback at the harshness of the woman’s attack, but then she saw red, and wished they were in the physical realm so she could unload a clip into the witch just to shut her up.

  “Humans will continue to suffer at the hands of those things because you chose to be selfish.” The woman straightened and regained her previously cool composure. She stared at Dez for a long moment, neither of them speaking. With a coldness only seen on the faces of statues, the woman finally broke the silence.

  “You will change your mind, and when you finally do, you need only whisper my name, and I will be there to do what must be done.” With that, the woman vanished into the air, leaving no trace of her having been there.

  “Sorry, bitch, didn’t catch your name,” she mumbled to herself bitterly.

  The response was all around her with no one in sight, and it was quiet, almost a whisper, but Dez was positive she heard it correctly.

  “My name is Catalina.”

  For not the first time in recent months, Dez was left speechless.

  Dez opened her eyes to find Vegas still sitting right where he had been when she closed her eyes. He was watching her face with a careful expression on his own.

  “Did you hear any of that?” she asked, trying to calm her thumping heart.

  “Only just,” he replied. “I couldn’t see anything, but I heard the whole show.”

  “Did you catch what she whispered at the end?”

  “I couldn’t make out what it was.”

  “I did,” she said. She leaned over, blew out the two purple candles, then climbed to her feet. Dez reached out a hand and offered it to Vegas even though she knew he didn’t need her help. Having his hand in hers eased her nerves. “She whispered her name. Vegas, she said her name is Catalina.”

  “No,” he quickly responded, shaking his head, “it’s not her, Dez. She’s dead.”

  “Says who?” she asked. “We only have Cassandra’s word to go on, and as we recently found out, that means fuck all.” Hearing the front door open, she turned and started down the hallway. “I noticed right off there was something familiar about her, I just couldn’t pinpoint what it was,” she continued as she walked. “I mean, she looked nothing like me, but something about her face…” Her words trailed off as she rounded the corner to see Charlie and his wife putting bags on the dining room table.

  “How did it go?” Harley asked in a chipper voice.

  “She was a bitch,” Dez replied, venom tainting her words. She recounted the entire conversation to her friends as they put away the spoils of their trip.

  “So, it was a good meeting of the minds?” Charlie asked with a smirk, folding up the last of their reusable grocery bags.

  “Yeah, ducky,” Dez answered. “It wasn’t a complete waste, though.” She glanced at Vegas and then back to Charlie. “I’m pretty sure the chick we were talking to was my mother.”

  “She’s dead,” Vegas reminded her.

  “But what if she isn’t?” Dez wasn’t hopeful about the woman being alive. She didn’t know her birth mother, and if this was the same woman, Dez didn’t really want to get to know her, given the silver-eyed woman’s attitude about Dez’s very existence. “It doesn’t change anything. Even if it is her, she still abandoned me, and I still grew up in with Cassandra as a mother. I’m not looking for a family reunion. The last one didn’t go so well.”

  “What about the weapon she mentioned?” Charlie asked.

  “No clue,” Dez replied, shaking her head slightly. “It could have been bullshit, but if it is true, I wouldn’t even know where to start looking. I don’t think it’s important though. Whether we are killing them or sending them back to Hell, it doesn’t really matter, as long as they’re gone. I don’t want to shift my focus to finding something I’m not even sure exists.”

  “I agree,” Vegas said. “Even if she wasn’t lying, if there really are thousands of demons out there, it would be best to continue hunting them down. The last thing we should do is lose momentum.”

  “So, that’s it then?” Harley asked. Dez chuckled at her obvious disappointment.

  “Almost,” she replied. “We still need to talk to Lucas and Natalia. I don’t want to split and have them harass you after we are back in New York.”

  “Stay one more night,” Harley pouted.

  “Yeah,” Charlie added, “we have the space and we were already expecting you’d be here longer. Stay another night. We can all relax and catch up. Also, there’s supposed to be a meteor shower tonight, and that is not something you want to miss seeing from out here.” Dez looked at Vegas for his input.

  “I don’t see why not,” he replied with a shrug. “I will shoot Kade a text to give him an update.” He stood from the table and Dez watched him appreciatively as he rounded the corner and out of sight.

  “We can help you, you know.” Dez turned back to see Charlie waiting for a response.

  “Help us with what?”

  “We can join the fight,” he explained. “Harley and I are both fully capable of holding our own. The two of you don’t have to shoulder everything on your own.” Before Dez even opened her mouth to respond, she was shaking her head.

  “No,” she replied, “I could never ask you to do that. You went off the grid for a reason, Charlie. You didn’t want this life for her.”

  “That’s not his choice to make,” Harley fired back.

  “Har—“

  “No,” she snapped defensively, “we can help. I am human, but I’m not some helpless invalid.”

  “I don’t think you’re an invalid,” he replied softly, “and you’re certainly not helpless.” Turning back to Dez, he sighed, then continued. “She’s right. It’s not my choice to make. We are both willing to step up and give you a hand. She can help without going up against a demon.”

  “Plus,” Harley added, “I have this.” She turned and lifted the hair up off the back of her neck revealing a small tattoo. Dez leaned in to get a closer look and recognized the symbol as a rune of some sort with elements similar to tribal art. However, it wasn’t anything she was familiar with.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “It’s a rune older than anything taught to modern day craft students,” Harley answered. “That little piece of art only cost me forty bucks and makes me unpossessable.”

  “Is unpossessable even a word?” Charlie asked with an arched brow.

  “Not the point,” Harley answered, breezing right by his comment. “No demon or any other spiritual entity can hijack my body. The rune keeps out any unwanted guests.”

  Dez couldn’t help but smile. I like this girl.

  “Wait, what made you get that thing tattooed on you in the first place?”

  “Being able to hear into the ether,” she explained. “In my younger days, I made extra money taking people on haunted tours. My natural gift made it so I knew which places were actually haunted. No one got ripped off and a few got the shit scared out of them. One night, I was doing a tour at some old abandoned house down in Georgia, and something attacked us. I couldn’t hear a clear voice from it, but let me tell you, it was pissed that we were invading its territory. It went after the two ladies I had with me. Needless to say, we beat feet and got out of there as fast as we could. After that, I vowed to never go into a place without some form of protection. Most spirits don’t bother anyone, but occasionally, you get one with a real hair across its ass. I have a theory about that too. I think spirits go crazy the longer they’re stuck in the ether. They’re not meant to be there. They’re supposed to pass on to whatever afterlife is waiting for them.”

  “Is that going to happen to Lucas and Natalia? They’re not going to end up psychotic ghost
s, are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Harley replied with a reluctant shrug. “Maybe, maybe not. They have each other in the ether so it’s not like they’re both wandering for eternity completely alone, you know?”

  “That’s true,” Dez answered.

  She couldn’t imagine Lucas losing himself like that. Even in death, he was too full of life to give in to that level of despair. Maybe Harley was on to something. Not everyone got to spend their afterlife with the person they thought they had lost forever. Perhaps Lucas and Natalia will be among the lucky ones who spend eternity with their sanity intact.

  “Anyway,” Harley continued, “the rune is for protection against anything non-human. It doesn’t stop me from being able to hear the endless babbling they all seem to do on the other side, but they can’t physically hurt me, and demons can’t take the helm, so to speak.”

  “Well, that’s some handy insurance you’ve got there.”

  “No kidding,” she replied knowingly, “and that’s my point. I may be human, but I have my fingers in various magickal pies, and demons can’t use me against you.” She smiled, turned to Charlie, and laid her hand over his. “I can help. I want to help.” Dez opened her mouth to protest, ready to tell her friends she was grateful for the offer, but she’d rather they stay out of harm’s way, when Charlie cut in.

  “Well, Dez, I don’t think you have much of a choice here.” He was smiling at her. A smile which said you have no valid argument and I know it.

  “Alright, but if you guys die, I’m never speaking to you again.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Michael

  “Do you think I’m a shitty person?”

  The question caught Michael completely off-guard. After he texted Kade, he had gone about cleaning up their belongings that were strewn around the bedroom they had been sleeping in. He wasn’t sure how they had caused such a mess already, but there it was, tossed over chairs and balled up in piles on the floor. He glanced over his shoulder. Dez was standing in the doorway, leaning against one side of the door jam with her arms folded over her chest. He picked up the last shirt which needed folding and turned toward her.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you think I’m a shitty person?”

  “You’ve lost me,” he replied.

  “I chose me,” she replied, as if the answer should have been obvious to him. “Over millions of people, I chose me.”

  “Are you really asking me if I think you’re a piece of shit for wanting to live?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” he replied, setting the folded shirt in the top of his suitcase.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and motioned with his index finger for her to come to him. The walk from the doorway to the edge of the bed was six steps at most, but he drank in the sight of her taking each one until she was standing in front of him. He put his hands on her hips, hooking his fingers in the nearest belt loops of her faded blue jeans, and pulled her closer to him, leaning his head on her stomach. With his eyes closed, he stayed there, reveling in the feeling of her being in his arms again. He felt her move and then her hands were on his shoulders, her middle fingers lightly drawing circles on his shoulder blades. He slid his hands down just enough to slip the tips of his fingers under the edge of her shirt, giving him access to the smooth, warm skin of her lower back. Finally, he leaned back and looked up at her.

  “I was petrified you were going to tell that woman you’d do it,” he confessed. “I thought sure I was going to have to lock you away somewhere to prevent you from your own needless self-destruction. It may be selfish, but I am not willing to lose you again, regardless of the cost. It’s not happening.” He stared into her eyes for a long moment before continuing. “I had visions in my head of the all-out battle we were going to have over whether or not you were allowed to sacrifice yourself.”

  He was quiet for a moment, thinking back on his frame of mind and way of living when they were apart. The countless number of people he put in danger simply because he couldn’t concentrate on anything, not even eating, while they were apart. Where she was. What she was doing. Whether or not she was alive…

  “I can’t lose you. Not again.” Michael looked into her eyes, the crystal blue glistening from unshed tears. She cupped the sides of his jaw in her hands, leaned down, and pressed her lips to his. When she straightened, she blinked a few times, trying not to cry.

  “Okay,” she replied, “then we can be shitty together.”

  “Deal.” He winked at her and before either of them could say anything else, Harley appeared in the doorway.

  “I need the two of you to put your clothes back on and come out here.” Without another word, she disappeared from sight, the quiet sound of her feet scuffing against the carpet as she made her way back down the hallway.

  “Come on,” Dez said, taking his hand and turning away. Michael got to his feet and followed her out the door.

  “We figured you guys could go for a nice, relaxing night, so while we were out, we got Chinese takeout, and more importantly, we got a few bottles of liquid entertainment.” She smiled and pulled a bottle of top-shelf tequila out of a brown paper bag, the largest bottle Michael had ever seen. “We have set everything out, please feel free to help yourselves. Michael, Ethan will be here in a few hours.”

  “He doesn’t need to come here. I can wait until we get back to the city.”

  “Nonsense,” Harley replied. “You were severely underfed when you got here, and seven hours is a long flight with a bunch of walking juice boxes. He’s also not expecting further compensation. He’s more than grateful for what Dez already paid him.” She turned to Dez. “He received your wire transfer, by the way. You didn’t have to pay him extra.”

  “I know,” Dez answered with a smile, “but you said he needed it and there was no way we could really repay the favor he did for us. He deserved it.” Michael hadn’t known Dez had paid above the agreed upon twenty-five thousand dollars, but it also didn’t surprise him. She was always a sucker for an underdog story. The thought made him smile.

  “Well, he really appreciated it,” Harley continued, “and so do I. He’s a good guy. It’s about time he got a break.”

  The four of them ate dinner, Ethan came and went, and late in the evening, shrouded in the endless darkness of the desert sky, Michael found himself leaning back in a patio chair staring up at the countless number of stars twinkling overhead. Dez and Harley were busy swapping stories about Charlie, all while the man himself sat and listened on, rolling his eyes every few minutes as embarrassing details were revealed. Michael was barely listening, only the occasional bout of laughter catching his attention.

  He was caught up in the beauty of the town their friends had claimed as home. As much as he loved the city, he could see himself living out in the middle of nowhere as they had chosen to do. Meadview was a town one could get lost from the world in. It was small, secluded, and had a breathtaking view, regardless of what direction you happened to glance in. Michael thought about how he hadn’t seen a view of the stars like this since his early years as a vampire. Since then, rural areas have populated, humans wiping out the natural landscape to make way for paved roads and towering buildings, and even with something as seemingly insignificant as streetlamps, the sky was too polluted with artificial light in most areas to view all the heavens had to offer. Meadview seemed to have gone relatively untouched thanks to its remote location, giving them all a rare glimpse of the billions of stars above them.

  Standing from his seat and grabbing his cigarettes off the table, he wandered to the far end of the deck and leaned on the railing as he took another sip of his drink. To his right were the Grand Wash Cliffs; however, in the dead of night, they appeared as nothing more than a black mass giving the illusion of an edge to the sky. He pulled a cigarette from his pack, put it to his lips, and lit it. As he took a drag, he stared out at the horizon, enjoying the peacefu
lness of his surroundings.

  “Hey, can I bum one of those off you?”

  Dez’s voice broke Michael out of his thoughts. He smiled at his own words being echoed back at him, a reminder of the night he came back from Venice, the night their whole world changed. He turned his head to find Dez standing next to him, looking up at him with a playful smile dancing across her lips. He stepped back, allowing room for her to step in front of him. She did so, facing him and hopping up to sit on the railing in front of him. He held the lit cigarette up for her and she took it, taking a drag. She exhaled the smoke, blowing it away from his face, and handed it back to him.

  “So, what’s up?” she asked. “You’ve been quiet tonight.”

  “Nothing at all. I’m just enjoying the time to breathe. Seems like it has been way too long.”

  “It has been,” she replied, nodding her head in agreement. “I’m glad we decided to stay an extra night. This has been a good place to step away from the world for a minute.”

  “I agree,” he replied. “I could definitely get used to this.”

  “Maybe I should buy up some property and set up a little getaway house out here,” she added, looking around at the shadows of neighboring houses.

  “I think that’s a gr—“ Michael stopped talking as something moving in the distance caught his eye. “What the fuck was that?” he asked, knowing no one else had seen it.

  “What was what?” Dez asked, turning to look behind her.

  “I just watched a star fall out of the sky.”

  “That happens every day,” she replied with a smile. “You really do need a vacation.”

  “No,” he said, willing her to understand. “Not a shooting star. This floated down slowly, and disappeared behind the nearest cliff edge, but in front of the cliff edge further in the distance. It’s as if it fell into the canyon.” He kept staring at the spot in the distance, waiting for some sign he wasn’t crazy. Just when he was about to give up and look away, another star started along the same path.