He gave a muffled yell and I raised my arms as my former partner leapt onto the counter and then down to the floor, raining down blows at me like a spider with fists. Somehow in the struggle Joe’s mouth gag was freed.
“Every time!” he was saying. “Every time I work with you, Theo, something like this happens!”
I got a good jab in straight across Lucy’s chiseled jaw. She grunted and fell back as I prepared to throw myself at her.
“Oh really? You get assaulted by a 4-armed assailant?” I launched myself at Lucy, aiming for her shoulder. If I caught her directly in the chest, she could close her arms around my back and suffocate me or beat me like a drum set into submission. My hands connected with the top shoulder on her left side, and I shoved her backward. She spun like a top around the side of the counter and into a revolving display rack of gun accessories.
“Assaulted?” Joe cried out. “Look at my face. She battered me. That’s the correct legal term.”
I flashed a glance his way. He was developing a pretty nasty shiner over one eye. “You know I’m not too keen on the legal aspects of the law.”
Lucy righted herself, shoving a bunch of trail cameras off a shelf and clattering against the floor as she clambered toward me. I shot toward her with a jump kick but she swatted me to the side and I dropped to a crouch as I spun and punched her behind the knee. Lucy wobbled backward but she righted herself with the help of her hands, completely ripping off a shelf in her rage, sending more products crashing to the floor.
“Theo!” Joe shouted. “You’re destroying my store!”
“Am not. She is!”
I just barely managed to duck a blow but Lucy caught me on her next swing right to my gut. I nearly threw up with the impact, and I clutched at my side as I staggered backward. She seized the moment to strike again, clocking me across the temple with one of her fists.
She’s got too many GoneGodDamn fists!
I spun, stars shooting across my vision as I righted myself in time to receive a boot to my forehead.
Joe had managed to free his wrists with a pocketknife and scurry out from behind the counter just as all 120 pounds of me collided with him as I fell to the ground.
Crunch.
I rolled off of Joe.
“Oww!” he wailed while clutching at his hand where one of his fingers was bent at a bizarre angle. It looked … painful. “This is the last time! You hear me, Theo? The last time—oomph …”
Joe’s anguished face flopped backward as he absorbed a punch meant for me. Always look on the bright side of life … At least now he had two matching shiners!
He groaned so I knew he was still alive. I edged away from Lucy, both of us crouched in defensive positions.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Nothing much. Partner.”
“Ex-partner,” I corrected.
She sneered and wiped sweat off her brow. “You remember our last job together?”
I didn’t have to think long about it. “How could I forget? The museum job in Boston.”
“That’s right. The job you flaked on.”
I threw up my hands. “What can I say. That necklace was cursed. I wanted no part in stealing it.” I stared at her as we slowly circled each other. “I’m guessing you went after it anyways?”
“You’d be correct.” Eve used one of her four arms to pull back the sleeve of one of her other wrists to reveal a four-digit number branded into her skin. “Let’s just say it didn’t go well for me. I got a lot of ‘cell time’ if you know what I mean.”
“What kind of jail brands you with an inmate number?”
She shook her head and spat to the side. “It wasn’t a jail.”
“Sorry to hear—not really. Are you blaming me? You want to make me pay?”
Lucy jabbed a finger at me through the air as we continued our sideways dance. “You owe me a job. And Joey boy here confirms you placed a big order. Big order means big job? Correct?”
I peered at her over my raised dukes. “You’re crazy if you think I’d ever pull another job with you.”
She shrugged, her two sets of vertically stacked shoulders bobbing in unison. “Never say never.”
I laughed. “I actually didn’t say ‘never.’ ” It felt good to finally think of a decent comeback on the spot.
Lucy gritted her teeth. Then she scuttled forward and sent a punch-punch-kick combo my way. Her rage made it easy to predict her movements and I deflected the brunt of the strikes, even managing to land a kick of my own to her face that sent her bowling over a spinning rack of metal, “private property” signs with sayings like, “If you’re close enough to read this, you’re in range” and “No trespassing, we’re tired of hiding the bodies.”
Gotta love prepper humor.
Lucy picked herself up and shook her arms out. She was getting sloppy and she knew it. She spat a wad of blood to the side and grinned a reddish smile. “Who’s your new partner?” Her icy blonde hair whispered as she tilted her head studying me, two of her hands raised defensively, the other two drawing telescopic batons from under her jacket. “He’s cute.”
Just then the front door opened and a skinny man with horn-rimmed glasses stepped in, his eyes going wide at the sight of the trashed store and Lucy panting like a mad woman.
“Are … you guys open?” he asked.
“No,” both Lucy and I said at once, and the man sprinted out of the store. Why couldn’t it have been my friendly neighborhood Spider Face guardian angel dude? Not that I needed him to kick Lucy’s ass. I had this. Those batons though …
The main problem I’d had on the fire escape with Lucy was that I didn’t have much room to navigate. Here I had a whole store to move around her.
She came at me like a swirling tornado, and I swept to the side, picked up a heavy unmarked tin can and launched it at her. It struck her shoulder blade solidly.
“Ow!” She picked up a box of shotgun shells with one of her free hands and launched it at me.
I ducked just in time but tripped over a collapsible gun bipod. Before I could catch myself, Lucy gripped my shoulders with two of her hands and flung me at one of the shelves. It toppled over like a domino, causing a few hundred dollars’ worth of damage.
As I picked myself up, my eyes sighted past Lucy’s quickly approaching body and zeroed in on my new gear stashed on the countertop. If I could only get my hands on my taser …
In the meantime, my hands found a pile of rebar stakes for purchase resting horizontally on the shelf I’d landed on. That could have been bad, I thought as I raised a piece of rebar and warded off a nightstick blow. I spun off the shelf and darted past Lucy, taking a glancing blow to the shoulder that almost sent me to my knees but I made it to the counter. I dropped the rebar and fumbled with the taser’s packaging.
Lucy lashed forward and I rolled to the side, one of her nightsticks shattering the glass counter display case. I shifted to the side and ducked under another swishing blow, kicking out, striking her in the thigh as she swiveled again. She was fast, just not as fast as me as I pivoted out of the way and placed one of the few remaining spinning racks between us.
She whipped out again, knocking the display rack over, and I extended my own arm, the taser primed and ready.
Tzzzt!
Lucy hissed and drew back, the taser’s prongs stuck through the fabric of her jacket and into one of her biceps. She glared at me with animal-like ferocity before falling to her knees. “What … is it … with you and electricity?”
“Shocking, right?” I said, ecstatic to get in another zinger, although my smile turned to a frown when my ex-partner plucked the taser’s prongs from her skin like it was some spark-fanged snake, jerking the taser from my hands. It fell to the floor in a shattering of plastic parts and pieces. She made to come at me again and then coughed, clutched at her chest and limped to the door.
“This isn’t over,” she said and disappeared outside.
So cliché …
&nb
sp; “Taser time!” Garfunkel said, emerging from his shoulder pad.
I shook my head, catching my own breath and trying not to look at the general disarray of the store before me. “Wonder what her problem is.”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Simon said. “Someone didn’t have their pancakes today. That’s what happens when you don’t make them every morning.”
“Ticket Trouble”
Joe pressed the cold compress to his swollen hand, wincing at the coldness. Lying on the floor was the taser Lucy had smashed. Damn, I could’ve really used that …
“Definitely broke,” I said.
Joe held up his hand to the light. “That’s what I was fearing.”
“I meant the taser,” I said, getting up for a closer look at his finger jutting the wrong way. “Nah, that’s just dislocated.”
Joe looked unsure. “How do you know?”
I shrugged. “I’ll show you.” I flicked my eyes to the front door to distract Joe. When his attention wasn’t on his hand, I reached in and jerked the finger back into its socket.
“Owww! What the heck did you do?”
“Fixed your finger. You’re welcome.”
Joe looked about to pass out.
“Might wanna keep some ice on it but you’ll live.” I went back to what was left of the counter where I’d laid out all the supplies I’d asked Joe to get for me: tranq darts, nylon rope, three sets of comms (for me, Orion and Arachne), a carton of pomegranate nicotine gum and the crushed taser.
Joe sucked on his teeth. “You’re still paying for the taser.”
I swallowed. “That’s fair.” Besides, after tonight, I wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of a measly taser.
“And I’m adding a 25% tax to the order. Consider it hazard pay for me.”
“Ouch.” I put on my saddest look. “How about 15%?”
He shook his head. “25%.”
I blinked rapidly, trying to put to use my feminine charm. “20%?”
“Theo. Look around. You wrecked my store. It’s going to take the rest of the day to get everything back in order and see what damaged goods I’ll have to inventory out. I ought to charge you 50%.”
Damn. I really sucked at negotiating. Orion made it look so easy with his cool bravado and charm. Also, so did Skyrim, that one time I saw Arachne playing it and bartering with a merchant. Negotiation in the real world sucked.
Oh well. What was a little wounded pride now in exchange for 250K after Orion and I pulled the job tonight?
I glanced back at the ruined condition of the store. I didn’t have much time to linger but I wanted to help. It was best to stay on the good side of the people you worked with on a regular basis.
I placed a hand on my hip. “How about I help you clean up before I go? Will that help make up for some of the … shenanigans over the years?”
Joe laughed. Maybe he sensed he was the one with all the leverage here. “It would be a start, I guess.”
I righted the spinning racks that weren’t too mangled to stand back up on their own and was just starting to stack some products on the shelves when Arachne called.
“Yeah?”
“Theo, I finally figured out what went wrong with the tickets yesterday. Can you talk now?”
From the shop’s back office, I heard Joe shouting. “Jeeezus Louizus! I got two black eyes! Theo …”
I scooped up my new gear and headed for the door. “Yeah, I can talk …”
“Talk to me,” I said as I bounded the steps leading up from Joe’s basement-level store. The streets were moderately crowded by people, but there was no sign of Lucy.
Arachne continued. “The tickets are protected by a possession curse—and not the kind that deals with demons. Once the tickets fall into someone’s possession, they belong to them and them alone. If another living being makes physical contact with the cursed possession, it triggers the curse.”
Sheesh, talk about non-transferable tickets. “But I was wearing gloves …”
“Doesn’t matter. The moment your fingers came into contact with the ticket, you were essentially trying to take possession of it. Magic is, like, sooo particular, amiright?”
“Totes,” I said sarcastically.
“Ooh, someone wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”
I rubbed at my sore shoulder. “So let me get this straight. Orion and I both need a ticket. Only one person can possess a ticket or it catches fire. All said tickets are already possessed.”
“Yaa.”
I frowned. “Then … what is this? Mission Impossible? Because it certainly sounds … well, impossible.”
I heard Arachne pop open a can of Red Bull. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out all night.” She paused. “And I think I figured out a way.”
“That’s good.”
“But I’m not sure it’ll work. I mean, it should. The theory behind it is solid. But the execution of it …”
A woman grimaced as she passed me on the sidewalk. I ducked into an alleyway and checked my face in a compact from my clutch. There was some blood at the corner of my mouth from my recent fight.
“Let me worry about that part,” I said, wiping my lip with my jacket sleeve. I puckered my lips to suction up the excess blood in my mouth and spat behind a dumpster.
I angled the mirror to check out the rest of my face. There was a small bruise starting to form on my left temple but it wasn’t anything a dab of foundation couldn’t cover back at the apartment. All in all, I’d gotten lucky in my brawl with Lucy. I still just wished I had some clue as to why she was pursuing me.
“Here goes nothing, just, Theo, I know it’s going to sound crazy but, like, hang with me. I think it’s your only shot, especially with the event less than twelve hours away …”
Don’t remind me, I wanted to say but instead I said, “OK, I get it. It’s gonna be real hard. Spit it out already.”
Arachne took a breath. “The lore says that only a living being can possess an item. Following?”
“Yeah.” I made a speed-it-up gesture even though Arachne couldn’t see it.
“Ghosts aren’t living beings. But they’ve turned up in physical form ever since the gods left. But they’re still dead … as in they’re not living. So in theory—”
“You want me to find a ghost to steal the tickets and hold on to them until we get to the front gate?”
Arachne swallowed. “Uh heh heh. Sounds, crazy, amiright? I don’t even know how you’d find a ghost—”
“I know one,” I said.
“You … OK. That’s all well and good, but ghosts are kinda known for doing their own thing. They don’t hand out favors to the living—”
“I can be persuasive.”
“Right …”
“He’s a lich king. I call him LK. Except … I have no way of communicating with him. Think you can find him for me with your mad computer skills?”
A long pause. “Theo. I don’t know where any ghosts are. They don’t exactly use cell phones. Or social media.”
I thought on it. “You really think it would work?”
“Like I said, in theory, yes. But the odds of you finding this ghost—”
“Never tell me the odds,” I said. (What can I say? I’m a Han Solo fangirl.)
I stepped back out onto the sidewalk. “I’ll work on it. You’ve done good work, Arachne, as always. Thanks.”
“YW! Kisses!”
“Now please stop drinking Red Bull and catch a few hours of sleep.” I hung up and turned to my familiars. “You have any idea where LK could be now? Would he still be at that cemetery? And more importantly, if he is, would he be tethered to that cemetery?”
“One second,” Simon said, and I could almost hear his brain calculating as I dodged foot traffic on the sidewalk. Have I mentioned how I like to stay in constant motion?
“Ghosts are normally concreted to their place of death or some personal belonging although there are cases of them being able to travel freel
y through the world …”
Yay and crap. Yay because the odds were that LK was still at the cemetery, and crap, because I wasn’t sure I had the time to drive all the way up there and back to the city before 7:00 p.m.
“… but,” Simon continued, “lich kings follow a slightly different set of rules. They are typically summoned to perform a specific duty, usually to guard a place or object. With the object gone, there shouldn’t be a reason for LK to stay at the cemetery.”
I took a breath.
So, crap. “Any idea where he would’ve gone?”
Garfunkel shrugged. “To get a beer? What? If I was commissioned to guard some stupid ring for two centuries, that’s the first place I’d go.”
“Ghosts like bright lights,” Simon said. “It reasons that he would have been drawn to NYC.”
My heart started to patter. Maybe I had a chance of pulling this off after all. “But where at in the city? Arachne has no clue, and she’s got eyes all over.”
“Why dontcha call your boyfriend, Star Boy?” Garfunkel asked. “Maybe he heard of some ghost utopia in the city back when he was a star.”
“Orion is not my boyfriend. And thanks for the idea.”
I dialed, hoping Orion would pick up. I can’t count the number of times he’d accidentally switched his phone to Silent or ran the battery out without even knowing it.
“Hi Theo.”
“Do you know where ghosts would hang out in New York?”
“Uhh … why do you ask?”
“Long story. We need a ghost to steal another set of tickets … Hmm, guess it wasn’t so long after all.”
“Why would I know?”
“Because you’re … Star Boy,” I said with a sideways glance at Garfunkel who was nodding smugly.
“First off, that’s a ridiculous nickname, and I will not answer to that in the future. Secondly, I may have heard some whispers during my nightly tenure.”
“Cool, Star—Sport,” I said, catching myself. “What did you hear? Where’s the digs? The torch of the Statue of Liberty? Abandoned railcar in Grand Central Station? The secret fallout shelter under the Brooklyn Bridge?”
Axes and Angels: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Novel (Better Demons Series Book 1) Page 12
