Bad Angel

by JC Andrijeski

  “I need you to stay away from him,” Dags cut in. “Okay? Take Asia with you and get out of there, and if that guy tries to stop you, or even just to talk to you, run away or call someone for help. Whatever you do, don’t go anywhere with him. Don’t get in his car. Don’t let him get you alone… even at the club. Steer clear of him, and leave.”

  There was a silence.

  Then she snorted.

  He didn’t hear a lot of humor in the snort.

  “What is this, Dags?” she said. “Is this you telling me not to sleep with a slimeball? Or is this a demon-thing we’re talking about?”

  The fact that she could just lay that out there so casually managed to tongue-tie him briefly.

  Then he scowled.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, he’s a demon? Or yes, you don’t want me to sleep with him?”

  “The former,” he said, then amended, “Well, the latter, too, but I wasn’t thinking about that specifically. I’m pretty sure he’s gay as a human, but he might be more bisexual as a demon. Why? Did he approach you?”

  “No,” she said, sounding somewhere between bewildered and amused. “Gay as a human and bisexual as a demon? Is that a thing? And how would you know? Did he⏤”

  “No,” Dags growled. “He didn’t approach me. He didn’t say anything to me. Anyway, he’s not a demon, per se. He’s likely possessed by one.” Pausing, he added, “He is possessed by one. I don’t know why I made it sound like I wasn’t sure.”

  There was a silence.

  “Not a very good disguise, is it?” she commented. “That suit just screams demon.”

  “You can see him? Right now?” Dags said, still flooring the Mustang to keep the McLaren in sight. “Where is he?”

  “So you just left me here? In a bar? With a demon?” she said.

  Dags felt his face warm. “He didn’t seem to be targeting you.”

  She grunted. “Still. A head’s up would have been nice. You could have at least warned Asia, since that Jason Tig guy went after her last time⏤”

  “I should have,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. She had me all… flustered.”

  “Flustered? Asia? That’s… interesting. I guess you never got to finish with the redhead though, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised⏤”

  “She had me flustered for other reasons,” he growled. “Mostly from yelling at me. And then my target left. That’s where I am right now. Tailing her.”

  “And she is? The hot Asian woman in the barely-there dress? Who’s now with Jamie?”

  “Yes,” he growled. “A woman who also happens to be possessed by a demon. And the girlfriend of my client. The client who hired me to come find her⏤”

  “Okay, okay,” Phoenix said, catching up. “So that’s the guy you were sitting upstairs with earlier? The cute surfer-looking guy who was with you? With the bowling shirt?” She paused, as if thinking about this. “He didn’t seem like a client. It seemed like you knew him. I thought he was actually a friend of yours⏤”

  “He’s both,” Dags said. “I know him. He’s a friend. An old friend. I know both of them. I went to school with them.”

  “School?” She sounded bewildered again.

  “Junior High. High school. Yeah. They’ve been together since then.” Frowning, he added, “That’s not how she normally looks. The clothes. The make-up. Any of it. We all dressed closer to how you saw Uri. That’s her boyfriend. The surfer-looking guy.”

  Hesitating, still thinking about Uri and Jade, he added,

  “She’s a surfer too. You’d like her. She’s funny. And smart. And she and Uri are like… finish-each-other’s-sentences types. I think it might literally kill him if he lost her. He came to me when she disappeared. He knew I was a P.I. I have no idea how he knew, but he knew. I hadn’t seen him in years. I got him out of there once I realized a demon had her.”

  He practically felt Phoenix turning over his words.

  It struck him that he’d stunned her.

  He’d actually stunned her into silence.

  Partly by calling her at all, he realized.

  Partly by telling her so much.

  Maybe partly by saying so much about literally anything.

  His face warmed as he listened to her silence.

  “Please,” he said, his voice lower again, more subdued. “Please. Until I can figure out what’s going on… what all these demons want… can you and Asia just get out of there? I didn’t check everyone you were with, but I know Asia’s okay. Can you just leave with her? Call it an early night? I’m not trying to ruin your plans, but⏤”

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay, Dags.”

  Dags felt his shoulders relax.

  Relief flooded through him.

  “Thank you. I⏤”

  “⏤I’ll do it,” she cut in. “But on one condition.”

  Dags frowned. Focusing back on the road, he watched the McLaren gun it, peeling out onto Santa Monica Boulevard without so much as a rolling pause at the intersection. Paz swerved the McLaren in a tight right turn, darting around a tan SUV as he headed west.

  Dags copied the McLaren, ignoring the stop sign as he hooked a wider right, weaving through traffic, then accelerating to make up the distance. He earned a few honked horns, but managed to get into the far-left lane, the same lane as the McLaren. Santa Monica was a much bigger road; it also had more traffic. He had six cars between him and the McLaren now, which wasn’t bad, but he should probably get closer in case they made any sudden turns.

  “Dags?” Phoenix said. “Did you hear me?”

  He clenched his jaw.

  “What is it?” he said, wary. “What’s the condition?”

  “You come to my house,” she said. “When you’re done doing… whatever it is you plan to do. To help your friend.” She hesitated, then added more cautiously, “No strings. Come over. That’s it. No obligation to stay. No obligation for anything.”

  “It might be late.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “It might be really late, Phoenix⏤”

  “I don’t care,” she repeated. “Do you agree? Or not?”

  There was a silence.

  He already knew what he would say.

  There was really no question as to what he would say.

  “Yes,” he said. “Get out of there. Now.”

  Without waiting for her to answer, he hit the hang up button.

  Scooping the phone up off his dash, he stuck it back in his jacket pocket.

  Staring at the back of the McLaren as it swerved around another luxury car, what looked like a BMW, he fought to clear his head, to push Phoenix out of the forefront of his thoughts.

  It was harder that time.

  Even with his worry about Jade, it was harder.

  His skin felt hotter. His tongue thickened in his mouth.

  His chest felt tight, like he couldn’t breathe.

  It hit him that he was already reacting⏤more than he had any earthly right to react⏤to the promise he’d just made her.

  The realization only made the feelings worse.

  He grew aware that some part of him was already half-sick with anticipation, not to mention an uncomfortable amount of flat-out want. His cock hardened before he could push it out of his mind, or remind himself just how fucking stupid he was being.

  God. He was an idiot.

  Asia was right, even if not in the way she’d thought she was right.

  He really was a damned idiot.

  Chapter 13

  Pool Party

  Jamie Paz didn’t take Jade to the beach.

  Dags fully expected that to be their destination, once he saw the direction the McLaren blazed down Santa Monica, and given that Jade lived in Venice most of her life.

  They didn’t drive all the way to the ocean, though.

  The McLaren turned off Santa Monica well before they reached the coast, and began climbing back up into the hills to the north, into Brentwood.

  Briefly, Dags was tempted
to call Phoenix back, ask her if this movie star guy, Jamie Paz, kept a house there.

  In the end, he didn’t.

  He couldn’t afford the distraction.

  Anyway, it didn’t really matter.

  He’d likely have to confront the demon wherever the car let them out; Dags couldn’t risk Jade doing something to this Jamie Paz person before he could get the demon out of her.

  He still wasn’t sure what the Jade demon’s exact motive was, but really, there were only a few likely possibilities: either it brought Paz here to kill him, it intended to turn Paz into another demon vessel, or else it planned to have sex with him, rob him, and then do one or both of those things.

  Whatever the exact scenario, Dags was guessing Jamie Paz wouldn’t emerge in great shape on the other end.

  He followed them through another series of winding streets, until the McLaren pulled into a long, circular driveway in front of a white brick mansion.

  Dags parked the Mustang cautiously by the curb outside the wrought-iron fence around the three-story dwelling, noting there were at least ten cars in the driveway already, along with another half-dozen parked on the street outside the gate. From the lights flooding out every window and illuminating the front lawn and what looked like a sculpture garden, not to mention the people Dags could see through those windows, and the sounds of a pool, music, and laughter he could hear from a not-visible backyard, Dags guessed it was a party.

  So this probably wasn’t Paz’s house.

  Worse, this likely wouldn’t be any better than the club, in terms of taking the demon down. It might even be worse, depending on how many people were inside, whose house it was, and how likely it was to hit the news if Dags tried to handle things here.

  He might have to wait for them to leave again.

  That, or find some way to kidnap Jade out of the party.

  Scowling, Dags glanced around at the expensive cars parked in the street, and decided he couldn’t risk the demon pulling something inside, out of his view.

  He couldn’t risk losing her. The idea of having to go back to Uri, to tell his friend he had no idea where she was, made him feel physically sick.

  He pulled out his phone at the thought, sending a quick text.

  I’m still following her. I’m still going to do my damnedest to bring her home tonight. Will call/text if anything changes… Dags.

  Hesitating, his thumb hovering over the “send” button, he wondered if it was a bad idea to tell Uri that, in the event the outcome was, well, bad.

  If Uri expected Dags to bring home his girlfriend, safe and sound, that very night, and Dags showed up empty-handed, or worse, with terrible news, would the text make the horror of that reality worse? Or would it make no difference, other than to reassure an old friend for a few hours that Dags was still on it?

  He couldn’t decide.

  After another breath, he hit send.

  Shit. Hopefully it would reassure him.

  Yanking on the car latch, he popped open the door of the Mustang and slid to his feet, looking up and down the dark street before he began walking casually to the gate. He hadn’t seen a guard out there, but there was a good chance they had CCTV. He didn’t want to look like anything other than another late-arriving party guest.

  Shoving his hands into his pockets, he walked along the lit part of the driveway.

  Rather than walk up to the front door, he walked past it.

  Still moving in that casual gait, he made his way to the right side of the house, and slid through the gate into the backyard.

  He found himself on a stone path, lined by a succulent garden planted in strangely geometrical patterns, almost like mandalas or sacred geometry. He saw cactuses too, some of them as tall as he was, and a row of palm trees towards the end, as the garden landscaping converted into something more tropical as it rounded the back end of the house, leading into another massive lawn to the right.

  The pool was located to his left, situated directly behind the house.

  The sounds up ahead grew louder. He heard talking and laughter, glasses clinking and water splashing, along with faint strands of music.

  Dags continued to walked casually, but now he took care to walk quietly, and to stick to the shadows. He didn’t want to look like a cat burglar, in the event someone was watching him on security cameras, but he also wanted some idea of what he was walking into, how many people were here, where Jade and her movie-star date might be, preferably before anyone noticed him, or tried to talk to him.

  Like with most people since The Change, movie people had a way of reacting to him strangely.

  Dags couldn’t always predict what that strangeness might look like, so a lot of the time he tried to side-step those interactions altogether⏤that, or minimize them as much as he could. Occasionally, he even tried to use those reactions to his advantage, but usually, that ended up being a huge mistake, backfiring in ways he never seemed to predict.

  Really, he hoped he wouldn’t be noticed at all.

  That rarely worked out for him, though.

  Ironically, before the Change, Dags would have thought being noticed by so many beautiful people would be a good thing, that it would be interesting… that it might even say something interesting about him.

  The reality of it was nothing like that, though.

  Dags had no idea why people were drawn to him now, but he didn’t find it flattering or remotely interesting. He mostly found it unnerving and weird as hell.

  Like now.

  Now was one of those times.

  The instant Dags reached the end of the shadowed area around the house, and stepped reluctantly into the light cast by the lit-up mansion⏤not to mention two fire pits, a scattering of torches, and floodlights all over the lagoon-shaped pool and its colorfully-lit waterfalls and rock gardens⏤he was noticed by close to half of the people standing around that pool.

  They stopped dead, staring at him.

  Within a heartbeat, they just… stopped.

  They stopped telling stories, flirting, quipping with friends, passing joints over one of the many deck tables, lounging in the hot tub, treading water in the pool. As if guided by a single hive mind, they turned towards Dags, and froze.

  Dags froze when they did.

  He got weird reactions from people, it was true. Ever since the Change, people noticed him more, flirted with him more, tried to talk to him more, seemed more fascinated with him.

  But this was next level.

  This was full-blown Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  Roughly fifty people seemed to be staring at him. The only sound was music thumping through speakers placed strategically around the wooden deck, the sound of the waterfalls into the main pool, the sound of jacuzzi jets in the elevated hot tub.

  Further away, Dags heard a background hum of voices, laughter, and other music coming from inside the house.

  He stared around at those faces, wondering if he’d stumbled upon something illegal.

  Something exclusive and illegal, where everyone knew everyone else.

  Then he stared at a few sets of eyes, long enough to see them flash and change in the dim light around the pool, and realized the truth was much worse.

  Demons.

  He glanced from one face to the next… to the next… seeing red glows in every set of irises he focused on long enough to see them through the Change.

  These people were all possessed by demons.

  He’d stumbled upon a damned demon pool party.

  In Brentwood.

  He didn’t fire the first shot.

  Hell, he hadn’t even moved. He still hadn’t gotten his mind to turn back on from the realization of how screwed he was.

  He was still staring around at faces, focusing on a few in particular before his gaze absorbed and moved on, verifying what he already knew.

  They all had the demon aura, that stringy, black, shot-with-silver aura that he recognized from the portal on the hill.

  Worse, he k
new some of those faces.

  He saw his damned realtor among them⏤which pretty much explained why she hadn’t been returning his calls. He saw his gardener, and a woman who used to take care of the pool on the deck of the house above his apartment.

  He saw a guy who’d been a client a few years back, a missing person case.

  He saw another client, a woman, who had Dags deal with her ex-boyfriend stalker who’d been leaving her threatening notes and kept trashing her car.

  There were a lot of faces he didn’t know.

  But the sheer number he did know completely stunned him.

  Dags… didn’t know that many people.

  Or, he would have said he didn’t, until this precise moment.

  He was still focusing around the area, counting bodies, counting red-lit irises, marking where they all stood around the pool⏤

  ⏤when someone ran into him from the side.

  They body-slammed him, knocking him sideways so hard, Dags instinctively went soft, rolling with them over the lawn even as he gripped the person’s arms and neck in his hands, trying to get his weight back on top.

  Even fighting to bring forward the angel fire, it wasn’t easy.

  The guy had a demon in him.

  He was also huge.

  Like, football-player huge.

  Like football-player mixed with weightlifter mixed with professional wrestler.

  The guy looked like something out of a cartoon, like he had giant DNA mixed with human DNA, like his skin should be green instead of pale white.

  The demon-possessed giant wrapped his hands around Dags even as Dags did the same; the demon caught his wrist with thick fingers, right as Dags managed to get ahold of his muscular throat with one hand. They grappled, and the demon threw his weight down, briefly blurring Dags’ vision and snatching hold of his throat with his free hand.

  Instantly, it grew a hell of a lot harder to breathe.

  The guy’s fingers squeezed mercilessly, like an iron vise.

  Normally, Dags letting himself fall, letting himself roll with an opponent until he could gain some kind of leverage, would have been a solid move.