American Demon

by Kim Harrison

  Lips twisted in annoyance, Hodin looked at the cars until they began to move again. He then turned to the people watching, and they all found somewhere else to go. “Who is Ku’Sox?”

  How come people never leave when I stare at them? “Go ask Dali,” I said belligerently, but it was telling that he’d missed that part of demon mischief.

  Sure enough, he backed off, eyes on my hair still floating from the line energy. “You will stop spying on me,” I demanded, easing up on my own anger. Sure, I’d gotten him to turn around, but now it might get sticky, and my gut tightened at the uglier curses I had at my fingertips. “And I want a straight answer so we can settle this right here, right now,” I said boldly. “Are you making people attack each other in their sleep?” Oh, God. If he was, I was going to be banned from more than Patricia’s, because we were going to tear up this street.

  “No,” he said simply, his goat-slitted eyes going to the surrounding buildings.

  “Really?” I said, incredulous but believing him. Demons always wanted to be caught. It gave them something to do and they thrived on the notoriety, believing to an unhealthy extreme that there was no such thing as bad press.

  His eyes returned to mine, and I stifled a shudder. “You seem relieved,” he said, and I exhaled as I looked at the passing cars and the slowly returning foot traffic.

  “I am,” I admitted. “I don’t like busting demon ass. There’s too much collateral damage, and I never get paid for it.”

  He flicked open his dark glasses and fitted them on his narrow nose. “You think you could best me?” he said rather loftily.

  I ran my gaze from his hair, lightly moving in the breeze, to his biker boots. “Yep.”

  “You can’t even get a packet of no-doze from the local spell caster,” he accused.

  Great, he’d seen that. “I’m not the one who ran into a denuding curse, trying to avoid bruising my nose. Pinning you to the pavement would take a lot out of me, though, and as nice as Thanksgiving dinner is in the hospital, I have plans.” I hesitated to give my words more weight. “Stop spying on me. I mean it. We have rules in this reality, and one of them is you can’t stalk people or scare them to get what you want. If you want to know something, ask me. I like conversation. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to head over to the university for some no-doze.”

  I turned to leave, not sure if he was going to honor my request or not. Regardless, he’d put me behind my time, and now I was going to have to text Jenks and Ivy that I’d pick them up half an hour later than planned. It didn’t seem like much on the surface, but Jenks had to eat every forty minutes when he was active, and though Ivy would see that he ate, Jenks hated being taken care of.

  “Give me your money,” Hodin said, and I spun.

  Is he mugging me? I thought as his long, ring-decked hand stretched out. “Excuse me?”

  Hodin’s hand dropped as he looked askance at the nearby shop behind him. “I’ll get your no-doze for you. You’re going to need it.”

  “And you know this . . . how?” Suspicion narrowed my eyes. “You know who is setting people against each other in their sleep.”

  Hodin shrugged. “Give me the money. If I can get that witch to sell me the charms, you tell me how you earned Al’s forgiveness for treating with the Goddess. If I can’t, I’ll tell you who’s setting people against each other in their sleep.”

  Al’s warning of him being a trickster rose. Hands in my pockets, I looked up at him, wanting the charms but wanting the name of who was responsible more. “What’s the catch?”

  Hodin stiffened, silent as a car slowed down, the woman driving it checking him out. “There’s no . . . catch,” he said, and I eyed him, thinking he was a tall, dark-jean, leather-jacket, closed-emotion enigma. Finally I swung my bag around to find my wallet.

  “Okay, but if I win, I want you to stop following me as well.”

  Hodin took the wad of folding cash I gave him, holding it between two fingers as if it was a dead rat. “Damn curious way to run an economy.”

  “It’s what we got,” I said, then retreated to a nearby bench as he strode to the shop, his biker boots silent, looking like an undead in the sun. The door shut with a cheerful tinkle of chimes, and I waited in nervous anticipation, counting the uncaring cars going by.

  “She’s not going to sell them to him,” I whispered, fidgeting as I sat on the edge of the cold bench and stared at the store. No-doze charms worked for a day or two at the most, and you paid for it later in diamonds. I didn’t think whoever was doing this was targeting me, but even so, we had to get this done fast. “I knew it,” I said, both triumphant and disappointed when he almost immediately came out, but my lips parted at the bag in his hand with Patricia’s logo on the side.

  “She sold them to you?” I exclaimed, standing when he closed the distance between us and handed me the bag. Head down, I looked inside to see four packaged charms. “I can’t believe she sold them to you,” I said, worry sparking through me. Damn it, now I have nothing. “She had to have known that you were buying them for me.”

  “I can be persuasive,” he said distantly. “You have your charms. Now, how did you not only survive Gally, but regain his trust?”

  Crap on toast, all I’d done was get some charms I could have purchased across town. But then my gaze flicked to him. “Where’s my change?”

  “Your what?” Hodin seemed to freeze.

  “Change.” Head tilted, I pressed forward into his space until he took a step back. “You know, the difference between what I gave you and what the charms are worth.”

  “That’s what that is,” he almost whispered, his focus distant.

  “Oh. My. God,” I said, almost laughing. “Did you steal them? And the bag, too? You owe me, Hodin. I won. The deal was, and I quote, ‘If I can get that witch to sell me the charms.’ Not ‘If I get you your charms’ or ‘If I can steal the charms and not get caught.’”

  Hodin’s dark complexion flushed. “I didn’t steal them.”

  “Then where’s my change?” I said, knowing what my mom must have felt like. “And my receipt,” I added. “I need that for my taxes.”

  “The money is in the till,” he said uncomfortably. “I didn’t steal them.”

  “No, you just overpaid. I gave you enough for a dozen charms. You brought me four.”

  “Ah . . .”

  Bag in hand, I sucked on my teeth, looking from his stiff expression to the quiet store. “You stuffed the till and took what you wanted, the bag included.”

  He turned as if to leave. I made a grab for his sleeve, jerking away when he spun before I could touch him. “Hey. We had a deal. Who’s doing this? Hodin, don’t go. I was going to tell you about Al anyway—” I dropped back, voice choking off at Hodin’s sudden glare.

  “If you’re buying no-sleep charms, you already know what it is,” he said, goat-slitted eyes on the bag of charms. “Staying awake is the only way to survive the baku once it targets your aura. Pray that it gets what it wants before it eats all your shells and leaves you an animal.”

  Whoa. Wait up. My breath caught, and I stared at him. “A baku? That’s what’s doing this?” I pulled a windblown curl out of my mouth. “I’ve never heard of a baku. How do you stop it?”

  Hodin’s dark expression seemed to falter, and he hesitated, searching my face as if unsure. “The baku,” he finally said, correcting me. “There’s only one, and you can’t stop it. You endure it.” Hodin sat in the middle of the bench as if weary, knees wide in a classic manspread. “Like a plague or an unending winter. Why are you seeking no-sleep charms if they didn’t tell you?”

  He meant Al or Dali, and I gingerly sat down, a careful four feet between us. “Because every single person attacked someone they loved in their sleep, and I’m pretty sure they all have auras similar to mine and Al’s.” And Trent’s. “Baku isn’t an old name for a bansh
ee, is it?”

  He shook his head, his elbows on his knees and his focus on the past. “No. A banshee absorbs auras to feed. The baku finds you by your aura, then strips your soul shell by shell.”

  “That’s . . . appalling,” I said, horrified.

  “You only know the half of it. It’s made of sentient energy, and therefore impossible to destroy. Elves created it, tasked it to eat the soul of whoever they targeted, nibble by nibble, night by night, shell by shell, until its victim killed the one who irritated him the most, usually the one they loved the most. There’s no way to fight it but to stay awake. A veritable death sentence.”

  That was what was happening, all right. Nothing he’d said contradicted anything that we had learned. He’d just given our theory a name and source. But I’ve fought sentient energy before.

  Still, there had to be a way to control it. Things that destructive were usually contained, not allowed to run rampant. My eyes slid to Hodin, wondering where he’d been trapped until magic went down, freeing him and the baku both. “I need to talk to Al,” I said as I reached for my phone.

  “Don’t waste your effort. He’s in seclusion.” Hodin slouched deeper onto the bench.

  I pressed my lips together as I recalled my early-morning chat with Dali. “Dali said he’d let him go.”

  Hodin took his sunglasses off, tucking them in an inside jacket pocket before closing his eyes against the sun, basking. “Call him. Call Gally,” he said, sounding bitter. “See who answers.”

  Unsure, I stared at Al’s icon. I’d gone right to voice mail the last time. Changing my mind, I dug my scrying mirror out of my bag instead. Al wouldn’t dare ignore that.

  “He won’t help, even if he could,” Hodin said, that same bound anger in his voice. “Cut your losses and hide,” he mocked. “Wait for someone else to take care of it. Throw a party. That’s the demon creed.”

  “Al isn’t like that,” I said.

  “Right. And that’s why he dropped a zombie into your grounds yesterday,” he said. Eyes opening, he sat up, scowling when he saw my tiny mirror throwing back the world in a red-tinted haze. “You can’t destroy the baku,” he practically growled. “You can’t even find it. It hides in its host, emerging when he sleeps to do the bidding of its elven master, returning with the wisdom of it’s actions and forcing its host to know its atrocities. At least, it did until it learned rebellion.”

  I perked up at the harsh satisfaction in his voice in his last words. Host, he’d said. Master. They were two different things. “You were its host, weren’t you?” I said, sure I was right when he hunched deeper over his knees. “Dali said you belonged to the dewar back when everyone belonged to someone. You taught it freedom.”

  “It was killing everything that was me.” Head down over his knees, Hodin spun a ring on his finger. “And they made me suffer worse when they found out I was to blame for its escape. I thought that if I taught the baku how to circumvent its chains it might choose to honor my desires and turn against the elves, but it did not.” Eyes holding a bitter rue, Hodin stared at nothing. “It only formed a pact with them, exchanging its continued volunteered services for the chance of what it really wants.”

  “Which is?” I prompted, and Hodin sat up, his expression empty of emotion.

  “A body. Whoever has offered to host it is playing a tricky game of chance. The baku chooses to do its host’s bidding, and in return, the baku will slowly eat away at its host’s soul until it becomes so thin that the host can no longer kick the baku out. The baku will then take him over completely, leaving no host, only the baku.”

  Crap on toast, no wonder the demons hid from this thing. “I’m calling Al,” I said as I settled my mirror back atop my knee. “You want to listen? Make sure I don’t squeal on you?”

  “No,” he almost spat, as if I’d invited him to swim in a cesspool.

  “Suit yourself,” I said as I secured my hold on the ley line and unfocused my attention.

  “Don’t think about me,” Hodin warned, and I glanced at his knee, now inches from mine.

  “I know how to keep a secret in the collective,” I said, then lost myself as the bright sun, brisk wind, and even the pinch of my boot vanished.

  Al? Got a minute? I thought into the whispering nothing that was the collective on a calm day. Immediately a masculine presence sidled up to and almost enveloped me. Whoa, back up, dude! I complained as I recognized Dali’s imperialistic thoughts. I’m looking for Al.

  Gally isn’t available. The thought was tinged with annoyance and a desire to be quickly gone. That and . . . guilt?

  Fear slid through me, and I shifted on the cold bench. I’m looking for Al, I said again. Al! I mentally shouted, and several distinctive thoughts bombarded me to mind the volume.

  He’s in seclusion, Dali thought at me, his mind all but closed. I’ll inform you when he dies.

  “Dies!” I said aloud, my hand pressed firmly into the glass. “Dali, I found an old text about something called a baku,” I lied, and from beside me, Hodin groaned. “There has to be a way to stop it.” Hey. Wait up. I grasped for Dali’s presence as he began to slip from me, but I sank an idea into him and held on as he dragged me for a few thoughts of annoyance and stopped. Are you seriously not going to do anything? It’s targeting Al, I thought, and the demon seemed to sigh.

  We know. There’s nothing to do for it.

  “I have just about had it with your collective lack of action,” I said aloud, and at my side, I felt more than saw Hodin take notice. You know what is going on and you’re going to do nothing? You are a coward, Dali.

  Coward? Dali thundered, and I jerked, almost breaking our connection as his hatred for the elves flooded me. I watched too many of my kin turned to animals by this elven weapon. Thousands, Rachel, murdered by those they loved until Newt learned to shift a soul’s expression to hide from it. She’s gone, and no one else knows how. Al put himself into seclusion. This is the best for all involved, including you. Sometimes, if you give the elves what they want, they go away.

  There has to be something we can do, I thought angrily. Maybe the Goddess . . .

  There’s not, Dali thought bitterly. You give the baku what it wants, or it does more damage until you do. All we can do is keep him isolated so he doesn’t kill anyone while he fights for his soul. I’ll keep you informed. Someone will continue your studies.

  “I’m not worried about my studies,” I said to keep Hodin in on half the conversation. “This thing is loose in Cincinnati, targeting everyone with an aura similar to Al’s. There has to be a way to contain it!” I said, panicking about Al, but it was nothing to my fear when Dali’s thoughts sharpened on mine, digging.

  Rachel, how have you been sleeping?

  I pulled myself half out of the collective, my eyes going to Hodin. “Me? Fine. I’ve been sleeping fine,” I said aloud to maintain a connection. “Keep me informed of his state.”

  Breathless, I pulled my hand from the mirror, hardly noticing the harsh lack of connection. I didn’t care that my face was probably pale and Hodin could tell how scared I was. My God. I had to fix this. “There has to be a way to stop it. I mean, you don’t make a weapon you can’t control.”

  Hodin ran a hand over his thick stubble, almost a beard, really. He made a scruffy crow, a nasty dog, and an unkempt demon. His soul was probably just as untidy. “You could. Once. Now? I tried to make things better and only made them worse.”

  He seemed depressed, and I wondered at my probable-suicidal urge to give him a sideways hug. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. I can’t tell you the number of times I tried to make things better only to make everything worse. Get me drunk enough, and I might tell you about the time I tried to find a blood balance with I—” I stopped, warming at Hodin’s interest.

  “But baku damage isn’t permanent. I mean, you look okay,” I said instead.

 
“It repairs in time,” he said, his expression becoming as empty as mine was worried. “Your only hope is that it destroys the soul of its host and gains a body before achieving its host’s goal. But again, depending upon whose body it has, things might be worse.”

  I reached for my phone, the need to call Ivy and Jenks becoming intense. Or Trent maybe. Someone was hosting this thing, sending it out to destroy people’s lives. We could find him or her. Knock some sense into them. I doubted that Al being attacked was an accident. He was the world’s best-known demon. It was a great angle. Kill Al and do it in a way that instilled a fear of demons.

  “I know I lost the bet and have no right, but you said you would tell me,” Hodin said as I reached for the bag of no-doze amulets and pulled one out, cellophane crackling. “How did you survive Gally when he realized you could hear the Goddess’s mystics? Didn’t he try to kill you?”

  Surprise pulled my head up from my bag, where I’d been looking for a finger stick. Al insisted I hadn’t really heard them in my thoughts. That I’d been insane. Newt certainly had been. “Several times, yes.” The sharp jab of the tiny blade was a jolt, and I massaged three drops out onto the redwood disk. It soaked in, and my shoulders eased at the rich scent of redwood blossoming.

  Then I flushed when I realized Hodin was watching me as if I was churning butter when the store was two blocks away. “You bested him?” he said in disbelief.

  I will find who’s hosting it, Al, I thought as I draped the invoked amulet over my neck and hid it behind my shirt. “Best Al? Not hardly. He finally gave up.” How long could a person go without sleep before going crazy? A week? “I just kept blocking his attacks and talking to him until he grew tired of it. Annoyed instead of angry, I guess. Maybe he really didn’t want to kill me.”