Deal with the Devil (Withrow Chronicles Book 3)

by Michael G. Williams

  No time for a thank you, no time for anything like that. The Bull’s Eye simply took off at a sprint, not into the darkness like her attacker but into the light, past her confused savior, back across all four lanes of Alston, and into the darkness on the east side of that thoroughfare so that at least there was one border of strong light between her and the bogeyman. She hoped the lights and traffic and arriving police would be enough of a wall to keep him from circling around and trying to catch back up to her.

  She didn't like having to hope anything at all.

  9

  The next night The Bull’s Eye finished her janitorial shift at Durham Technical Community College around 10:00. She clocked out, put away her supplies and walked out of the building to go back to her house. In the unlikely event anyone looked back over the records, she wanted everything – surveillance cameras, time clock, everything – to say she was out of the building and gone for the night. So, she left and walked three of the six blocks from Durham Tech to her place.

  At the end of those three blocks was an abandoned A-frame. She cut up behind it and changed clothes in the darkness of its unkempt back yard: chilly work on an October night, but necessary. She didn't want anyone to see her and she didn't want to come from any real place. If a chance observer simply thought she was a squatter living in that abandoned hovel, all the better for maintaining the secret of The Bull’s Eye's real identity.

  When she got back to the school she was careful to break in rather than enter using her keys. She jimmied a few windows as she worked her way to the one that she knew was unlocked. Not a lot of buildings were built with windows that opened anymore but one part of this particular wing had them: the boiler room, with its potential build-up of fumes and gasses. She slipped in through the one she had rigged, closed it behind her and picked two different locks to let herself into the back of a chemistry supply room. The Bull’s Eye cut through a chemistry lecture hall, making sure to knock over an oh-so-recently emptied trash can as she went. Within thirty seconds she was striding silently down a hallway towards the library and its computer lab.

  The dull blue glow of monitors visible through the window in the door was nothing unusual at this hour. The IT staff told her they were usually left on overnight. What was unusual was the way the lights flickered and shadows played out across the walls. The Bull’s Eye slipped inside in silence out of habit: she found the costume had that effect on her. There were people in there with her, people who were moving around and who also had not seen her come in. She dropped to a crouch and crept forward.

  Four people – a young Latino, an older Asian guy and two Caucasian women somewhere between 30 and 45 – had rearranged the tables to form a ring of computers, all of which were playing different screen savers. Both men and one of the women were sitting in the middle of the circle of electronics, legs crossed, holding hands. They swayed slightly as they murmured something. The fourth woman was tall, with slightly scraggly dark hair and an expression of impatience mingled with intent curiosity. She stood to the side with her arms crossed. The Bull’s Eye could barely hear what the three in the circle were chanting. Their voices were low and slow and their words meaningless to her: not Latin, as she would have recognized that, but something which sounded equally esoteric. There were five candles between them on the floor, lighted, and their eyes were closed.

  Durham was getting weirder all the time.

  Questions raced around The Bull’s Eye’s head but the first and most pressing was to wonder where she was going to find a computer she could use if they were in here? The second was to wonder what it was they were doing? The obvious solution was to interrupt and ask them. On the one hand, no one was supposed to be here; on the other, they didn’t seem to be hurting much of anything. Maybe she didn’t want to hear their answers to those questions. Look what a little curiosity had gotten her last time, after all.

  No, she told herself, That is not how a hero thinks. She was crouched no more than six or seven feet from them, in the deep shadows outside their circle of electronically-derived light, so she stood and cleared her throat to reveal herself. The eyes of the three chanters and their one observer snapped around and The Bull’s Eye said in a very stern tone, through a solid black handkerchief worn around her nose and mouth like a bad man in a cowboy movie, “You folks have got some explaining to do, and then The Bull’s Eye needs to use one of those computers.”

  The men both tried to stand up at once, fell all over each other, knocked over two of the candles and only by grace of the still-seated woman’s reflexive grabbing of their hands managed not to topple two of the monitors on the desks. The Bull’s Eye was across the intervening space, into the circle and on the candles in a flash, yanking them up off the floor and letting hot wax run over her fingers without so much as a murmur of surprise. They were all three trying to say something but they were talking over each other and none was making terribly good sense. The Bull’s Eye put up a hand and spoke again. “Okay, it's like this: first, everybody shuts up.”

  They all stopped talking, pressed as close to the computer desks on the far side of the circle from her as they could get without moving the desks themselves. The woman observing them did not move or flinch or try to scuttle away. She stood there, sizing up The Bull’s Eye like she was ready to square off. They each seemed to notice that about each other; they each noticed the other noticing; and they each watched one another file it away.

  “Second,” The Bull’s Eye said, taking a moment to breathe deep, “Are you trying to rob the place?”

  They men shook their heads in shocked silence and the woman seated on the floor laughed all of a sudden. The Latino guy looked to be maybe nineteen: just the barest wisp of a beard growing in, thin, good-looking if you're into kids that young. He wore dark jeans, a white tank top, black sneakers and an eyebrow piercing in the barbell style. The Asian guy – Taiwanese, she would have guessed off the bat, based on various things – was in his fifties, balding and a little overweight. He’d dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and beige cargo shorts and flip-flops. The Bull’s Eye couldn't stand the resurgence of flip-flops: loud, cheap, neither shoe nor sandal. She despised them except on the occasions they slowed down someone she chased.

  The woman sitting on the floor watched her with intelligent eyes. She was a little shorter than average, dressed in a cream turtleneck and jeans, and she had long, dark, naturally-curly hair she let shield a little of her face from view. The men were scared, but the woman was observant in the same wary way of the fourth who stood outside the circle.

  “Okay,” The Bull’s Eye went on. “Third: I told you who I am. Do you recognize that name?”

  They all nodded yes, though the Latino opened his mouth to make some minor point of clarification. The Bull’s Eye put up one index finger to silence him before he could start. Great, that meant she was still being talked about in the media. That meant her attacker from the night before probably knew, too. Damn. She really needed to start watching the news.

  “Finally, and only one of you answering at a time, what are you doing in here?”

  The three of them looked at one another for a long moment, exchanging raised eyebrows that seemed to suggest maybe this was your bright idea, and finally the older Taiwanese guy spoke. His accent gave him away right off the bat. “We're engaged in a...” He cleared his throat. “Religious practice. It's endorsed by the school.”

  The Bull’s Eye held up the candle, long since out. “I doubt somehow the school signs off on violations of the fire code so you can practice your religion. Now make some tracks in the carpet before I throw you out myself.”

  The Latino looked ready to start crying so she figured this wouldn't take much longer. The seated woman stood up from the floor and dusted off her hands against the thighs of her jeans as she replied. “Excuse me, but they absolutely have endorsed the practice of our religion as a recognized student group. The DTCC Techno-Pagan Society is open to all members of the campus and community who identify
as techno-pagans, techno-shamans, or any other current amenable to the practice, exploration or observation of technologically enhanced spirituality.” She stopped quoting a mission statement and drew a breath. “My colleagues and I are engaged in a perfectly normal ritual practice and I'm afraid you've interrupted us.” She paused. “I’m Sheila.”

  The Bull’s Eye blinked at her, then looked back and forth between the others. The standing woman with the straggly hair still watched her like a cat watches a squirrel in the yard. “OK, Sheila. The DTCC Techno-Pagan Society? OK, great, but what the hell does that mean?”

  The older Taiwanese guy sniffed a little and said, “It means we're neopagans who believe technology has a role to play in ritual.”

  “None of that is meaningful to me. None of that is language. Scram.” The Bull’s Eye nodded towards the computers. “I’m not great with these and I’m going to need some room to think.” She stepped out of the way so that the door was accessible.

  Sheila smiled politely. “We aren’t leaving. We don’t want to run away from you. We wanted to bring you here, actually.”

  The Bull’s Eye started to make a smart remark but there was something in their expressions stopping her; she couldn't say what. Instead, she asked, “How do you mean?”

  Sheila jerked a thumb in the direction of the standing woman. “She hired us to summon you.”

  The Bull’s Eye noted, just briefly, the way in which Sheila had said it as though The Bull’s Eye were a genie or a ghost. She looked at the fourth woman. “And you are?”

  “Jennifer McCordy.” The woman’s arms unfolded at last and she held out a hand to shake. Her features finally slipped out of their mask of remote disapproval and wary interest as she chuckled twice in an alto voice. “I didn’t think this stuff was real. I’ve never been so glad to be wrong.”

  Roderick and I were failing to find prey we thought would be easy. I had wracked my brains on ways to find desperate people in Durham. Roderick’s idea to try posting an Internet personals ad resulted in way too many responses to be useful no matter how weird or offensive he tried to make it.

  “Is everyone on the Internet trying to get laid by the easiest means necessary?” I tried not to sound too disgusted or too jealous.

  Roderick shrugged his shoulder at that, seated at a table in a coffee shop we’d found in a strip mall by the highway. The people who ran it seemed plenty nice but they were a little freaked out by Smiles and Dog and their matching “Service Animal In Training” vests. They didn’t say anything about them, though. Everyone in town had been a little subdued since the bombs in Duke Chapel went off. People seemed to be trying to keep their tongues in check for fear they’d be next.

  I was busy working on my third piece of blueberry pie. Roderick was plugging away at the keys on an impossibly bright and metallic little computer he’d pulled out of something between a handbag and a briefcase. “Yes; or sell something; or some combination of both. Or they are looking for people they knew in school. Or the combination: they want to lay the people they knew in school. Or they want to look at pictures of cats saying funny things. Or –“

  I cut him off with the wave of a forkful of pie. “I get the picture.”

  “Of cats?”

  “No.”

  “Your loss.” He made a face as I took another bite of pie: tongue out, lips drawn back in a grimace, eyes squeezed shut. I ignored him.

  We sat in silence for a few moments before curiosity overcame me. “So is that how you meet your… dates?” I felt like I was asking about a social disease.

  “No,” Roderick sighed. “I am too old-fashioned. I like going out and meeting people. It is easier to charm them that way and it is easier to limit one’s post-tryst options for contact.”

  I blinked at that. “How so?”

  “If I meet them online I have to give them an email address or a number they can text or something like that. If I meet them at a bar I can dump them any old place and never really give them an idea of who I am.” The corners of Roderick’s mouth curled up in a predatory twist.

  “How…” I panned the stream of consciousness for words. “Practical?”

  Roderick looked away from the screen to purse his lips with amusement. “I apologize if that seems too pragmatic. Are you worried I will never meet a nice boy this way? Are your delicate morals offended? Do we need to talk about how you are being stalked by a demon?”

  I smirked back. “OK, so that can got opened, but I’m setting it aside for the moment. I just figured you were trying to get something more than feeding out of your dates. You see the same guys more than once sometimes, right? And you call them ‘dates’ and you go out to make them happen. I thought it was more than food to you.”

  Roderick looked slightly cross for a moment, his brows knit in thought. “But it is. It is the dating, itself. It is getting out and meeting people and having fun and then doing it again tomorrow or next week. Do not carry the 1940’s around with you everywhere, Cousin. Live in the now. The kids these days even have a term for it: ‘friends with benefits’. Not exactly a relationship, but it is two people interacting so it is a form of relationship.“

  “So,” I said, “You’re basically courting.”

  “Well, we are not exactly holding hands on the veranda while Mother peeks through the sheers.” Roderick rolled his eyes a little.

  I chuckled. “Neither were most kids who said they were ‘courting’ back in the day. That’s what cars did for us: they gave us mobile make out rooms.”

  Roderick arched one eyebrow. “I have always assumed the term ‘courting’ meant something more formal: something parent-approved.”

  It was my turn to shrug. “I’m sure it did once, but parents approve of lots of idea, the words for which the kids use to mean something more. Words such as ‘friends’ and ‘benefits’ in fact.”

  Smiles and Dog were fast asleep at our feet, their backs to both of us, alert ears waiting for something to wake them.

  Roderick let out a long sigh, his lips fluttering with frustration. “Anyway, this is not working. Online desperation-seeking, I mean. Get up. We are going dancing. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.”

  “Two birds?”

  Roderick fluttered his lashes at me. “We still need to get you that date, do we not? I could practically smell the desire coming off of you in waves when that demon was buttering you up.”

  “I’m not desperate for a date,” I growled. I paused. “But he was buttering me up. OK, let’s talk about this.”

  “OK.” Roderick lifted his hands over his head to stretch. “Here is the thing: you are a big boy. You can do whatever you like. I know better than to try to tell you what to do. If you want to flirt with a devil, that is your business and I will not make an enemy out of you over it. That said, by – aha – virtue of what he is, he is already an enemy of mine.” I opened my mouth to interrupt with a question but Roderick shook his head: the reason for that was a conversation for another time altogether. Roderick kept speaking without pause. “Remember who and what he is. He is a machine designed to tempt and nothing more. Think of how you feel about blood, cousin: think of the hunger you feel when you see red roll down the neck of a man while fear washes off of him in delicious waves.” I would have blushed if I could. This was more of the sort of talk vampires decidedly do not use with one another. Roderick smirked at my discomfort. Roderick relishes the perversions of our state. “He feels the same hunger, Cousin, but he feels it for ruin, not for blood. He will reach deep inside you, find the last human part of you, and squeeze the anguish from it like juice from a ripe tomato until you long to see the sun. He will not allow you that, though. That will be merely the beginning of the suffering he will inflict upon you and he will do it in the most subtle of possible ways.”

  I blinked. “I know,” I murmured. I hated being wrong. I hated Roderick knowing how I’d felt when Ross had spoken to me: like a schoolboy in puppy love. I didn’t know where it came from and I hadn’t
known it was still within me and that made it all the worse.

  “No, you do not know,” Roderick said. I looked at him again and his eyes met mine, as serious and sane as I had ever seen him. “You have no idea. I do. I have seen it happen and I will not permit it to happen to you. Let me be very clear: if you come under the sway of a demon I will destroy you before I let him do to you what he was made to do.” He meant every word. My mouth felt suddenly dry. Roderick was much more than my silly, nelly, queeny little cousin. He was all of those things, yes, and he was a warrior as well. “I will put an end to you, hand the keys of the kingdom to your second in command and go back to Seattle secure in the knowledge I have done the right thing. Is that clear?”

  “Yes.” I said it, but not quickly and not with joy in my heart. I felt like I should thank him, but I will never thank a man for threatening me, no matter how good his intentions. “I won’t let him do that. Did I find him attractive? Yes, I won’t lie to you. I absolutely did find him…” I shrugged, waved a hand. “OK, yes, attractive, but saying that word… It’s like it gets snagged on something in my brain. It’s like that word isn’t quite right but no one has invented a better one.” I sighed. “But I think I know a little about corruption and suffering, Roderick. I won’t let that happen. I am not destructively desperate for affection.” I said that last word with just the tiniest hesitation, like it hurt coming out of my mouth. It did.

  “Tell it to your worry lines, Cousin.” Roderick stood and folded the laptop to tuck it back into his bag. “I will be unable to hear you over the sound of techno. Let us leave the boys at my hotel and get our minds off this business. Maybe you can find someone desperate tonight.” The dogs stood in unison as soon as he moved. Roderick chuckled at his own words. “Oh, heavens. The subtext to a million invitations.”

  The inside of Power Company didn’t smell like desperation. Well, it did, but it also smelled like decades of cigarettes even though no one had been able to smoke inside for years. It smelled like booze, most of it cheap, some of it very expensive. It smelled like dryer sheets and hair product and human sweat; like skin powder and Old Spice and Polo cologne; like salt and flesh and desire. Opening the door of its otherwise blank brick façade was like standing next to a burst steam pipe full of pheromones. The bar’s entrance was just a plain metal door on the back of a building in a row of identically anonymous brick buildings down the middle of a city block. There was no sign and no obvious purpose for it being there. Its near-invisibility and discretion were artifacts of a time when gay bars didn’t need or want to advertise themselves or their clientele.