Death's Excellent Vacation
Page 23
The bully boys didn’t stop. They just hauled me past the buffet, past the dance floor, and down a dimly lit flight of stairs to an equally dimly lit basement.
“Guys? The V is an old buddy of mine. You might want to tell her that it’s me you have, so she doesn’t get too pissed with you when she finds out you’re doing this.”
Neither man said anything.
“Name’s Jim. Well, Effrijim, really, but that’s kinda girly, so I just go with Jim. Jovana knows me.”
They still didn’t say anything. They hauled me across the basement and, without one single word, dumped me into a small room, tossed Anyen in after me, and slammed the door shut.
“I will have your heads for this!” she bellowed as they locked the door. She pounded on it, making all sorts of threats, but eventually she stopped and glared at me.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, kicking aside a cardboard box and plopping down on a dirty-looking cot that sat in the corner. “I didn’t lock us in here.”
“The Venediger is your friend. You said she was.”
“Maybe they’re going up to tell her who I am,” I said, rubbing my sore toes. Box-kicking while you’re barefoot isn’t the best of ideas. “Maybe they’ll be back all groveling and with plates of buffet food in an attempt to curry favor with me. Oooh, curry. Devils and demons, am I hungry.”
“That doesn’t help me any,” she said in a rather surly tone. “It is your duty to get me out of here.”
“Sorry, sister, not again. I just went through one big escape scene—I’m not going to do another. Not for a really long time. I don’t think I could stand to sing about my lady lumps one more time.”
Anyen turned her back on me, but only after she lit me up one side and down another. It’s a good thing I’m immortal, or those curses she’d been flinging at me might have done some damage.
“I’m going to die of hunger. I’m going to starve to death. When Aisling finally tracks me down, she’s going to find nothing but a skeleton left,” I complained a good eighteen hours later. “You think this mattress is edible?”
Anyen, who had kicked me off the mattress and claimed it for her own, rolled over just long enough to glare at me. I was about to point out that I would share it with her when the noise of a key in the lock had me leaping to my feet. “Yay, Jovana finally heard I was here, and she’s going to let me out! That or they’re going to bring us some food. Either works for me.”
“The Venediger wishes to see you,” one of the bully boys said as he opened the door.
I blinked in the relatively bright light. “Yeah, I figured she’d want to make her apologies to me in person,” I said, sauntering nonchalantly out of the room. “Can we stop by the buffet first? I’m about to faint with hunger.”
“Effrijim!” Anyen belted out my name so it had the force to send me reeling a few steps. “I will not be left here! You must take me with you!”
I thought for a moment about telling her to suck it up—I am a demon, after all—but I was feeling generous, so I nodded toward her and asked the nearest guard, “Anyen wants to come with. You don’t mind, do you?”
The guard shrugged. “She may come as well, although the Venediger will not be ready for her until tomorrow.”
“Told ya the V was my good friend,” I said to Anyen as she shoved me out of the way, jerking her arm out of the guard’s hand. She stalked in front of me, tossing her head once and saying merely, “We shall see.”
We weren’t led into the bar proper—which was closed, since it was now early morning—but into one of the back rooms. It was some sort of a conference room, with a long table that had been draped with a black cloth, and three people who stood talking quietly in a small clutch.
“Hey, nice to see ya again,” I said, waving at the woman to whom the other two looked the second I stepped in the door. She was small and well dressed and had a pageboy haircut that always made Aisling giggle. “I see you’re still going in for those power suits, huh?”
Jovana, once a mage and now the person in charge of the Otherworld in Europe, aka the Venediger, stared at me as if I had an extra testicle.
“Oh, man, you don’t recognize me, do you? Yeah, the human form is a bit awkward, huh? But it’s really me, Jim. Aisling’s demon. You probably remember me in Newfie form. Big black dog, luxurious coat, package that would do a pony proud. Remember now?”
“Take the sacrifice to the table,” she said, waving toward me before turning her back on me to fuss over something behind her.
“Oooh, breffies?” I said, hurrying forward. “I’m starved . . . Hey! Sacrifice?”
The two burly dudes grabbed me by either arm and jerked me up onto the table. When Jovana turned back toward me, she held a wavy-bladed silver dagger in her hand. I had a really awful feeling I knew just what she was planning on doing with it. “Fires of Abaddon! You’re nuts, lady!”
“Silence!” she commanded, and gestured toward one of the flunkies standing against the wall.
A man came forward, pulled out a scroll, and read. “Demon of unknown origins found arriving via portal in the Latin Quarter on Tuesday afternoon.”
“Jim,” I said quickly, eyeing that nasty dagger. “My name is Jim!”
“You are charged with violation of the Roaming Demon Ordinance of 2008.”
“What?” I squawked, trying to squirm out of the two thugs’ grip. “What Roaming Demon Ordinance?”
“In accordance with the laws sanctified by the Venediger, your mortal form will be destroyed, and your being sent back to Abaddon where you belong.”
“You can’t do that!” I yelled, watching as the Venediger nodded and a Guardian came forward, pulling out a gold stick and beginning to scribe a circle around me. “Aisling is going to be really pissed!”
The Guardian paused, looking up. I’d never seen her before, but evidently she’d heard of Ash. “Aisling? Aisling Grey?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s her. Aisling is my boss.” I craned my neck to glare up at Jovana. “The same person who gave you your job!”
Jovana narrowed her eyes on me for a few seconds. “It is true that Aisling Grey has a demon under her control. But I have heard that the demon’s preferred form is that of a dog.”
“Man alive, doesn’t anyone listen to me?” I complained, trying to pull my arm free.
Jovana nodded to the guard, who let go of me. I yanked my hand free from the other one and sat up, rubbing my wrists. “I just got done telling you that I’m normally in dog form, but another Guardian ordered me into human form because she knew it would tick me off.”
Six pairs of eyes considered me as I slid off the table to my feet. I straightened my codpiece, dusted off my leather thong, and raised an eyebrow while I waited for the apologies to flow.
The Guardian rose from where she’d been kneeling. “If this demon speaks the truth—”
“I may be a lot of things, but I’ve never been a liar,” I said grumpily.
“If it speaks the truth, then I want no part of this,” she continued, putting away her gold stick. “Aisling Grey is one of the most powerful Guardians in the Guardians’ Guild. She is a savant, especially gifted, and someone I do not wish to cross.”
“Anyen will tell you who I am,” I said, waving at the ghede.
She glared back at me.
“Hey, I helped you, now it’s time for you to repay me,” I told her.
“Oh, very well. The demon does not lie. It is Effrijim. I have known it for several centuries,” she said, albeit kinda grudgingly.
“There, see? All’s well,” I said, heading for the door. “I’ll tell Ash you send her love, ’K? See ya round.”
“Halt!” the Venediger said, and instantly the two guards were in front of the door, their eyes narrow little slits as they frowned at me. “I do not accept this foul thing’s statement.”
“Foul thing!” Anyen said, starting forward. I grabbed her before she could jump the Venediger. “I am not a—”
“That is exactly where you are going,” the Venediger said, putting down the dagger. She looked at it regretfully for a moment before pinning me back with a glare that stripped the hair from my toes. “You will remain there until I can speak with the Guardian Aisling Grey to verify your identity.”
“No way!” I protested. “I’ve got . . . Let me count . . . Man, I’ve only got one day left of my vacation. I’m not going to spend it sitting in that room with a pissed-off ghede!”
“Nor will I go back to that squalid little room!” Anyen declared.
“Fine.” Jovana shrugged. “Then we will perform your release ceremony now. There will be no Guardian to object to you being sent back to Abaddon, I trust.”
Anyen’s eyes opened up really wide when the Venediger picked up the dagger again.
“You know what?” I asked Anyen, taking a deep breath and thinking about Cecile’s warm, furry little ears.
“What?” she asked.
“We’re immortal.”
She blinked at me for a second, but that’s all I gave her. I grabbed her arm, lowered my head, and charged the Venediger. She sprang to the side, out of the way, just as I figured she would. Anyen and I kept going through, right past the Venediger, the two others staring at us in surprise, and on through the window that opened onto a small garden.
Anyen was fast on her feet, luckily, and although my chest and arms and legs were cut by the glass as I went through the window, we both landed on our feet and took off running.
The Venediger’s guards, however, were mortal, and they were less than thrilled about leaping into a mass of broken glass. They were slower getting through the window, and by the time they got to the garden, we were racing down the back alley to freedom.
We split up not long after, Anyen making a snarky remark about me slowing her down.
“You’re welcome,” I yelled after her as she disappeared into the Tuilleries. “Hope you don’t get a really nasty case of zombie rot while you’re raising the dead!”
It took me a couple more hours before I finally lost the guard who persisted in following me, so it wasn’t until afternoon that I staggered exhausted, bleeding, and dirty from a fall into the Seine through the door of a familiar shop. “Cecile! Baby! I’m here!”
The woman behind the counter at the shop stared at me in stark surprise. “Jim? Is that you?”
“Hiya, Amelie. Yeah, it’s me. Where’s Cecile?”
“She . . . she . . .” Amelie seemed to be struck speechless, because she simply pointed upstairs.
“Thanks. Mind if I use your shower? I had a run-in with the Venediger, and I’m all ooky with blood and stuff. See you later,” I called as I dashed through the back room, then up the stairs that led to the apartment in which Amelie and Cecile lived.
Cecile was also a bit taken aback by my appearance, her eyes going even more bug-eyed than they normally were when I scooped her up in my arms and kissed her all over her adorable pointy little snout. “My darling, my adorable one! We might only have one day left together, but I will make it a day you won’t forget. I promise I’ll get back to my normal form as soon as possible,” I told her when she tried to squirm out of my hold, her little stubby legs kicking wildly. “This one sucks big-time, huh? Don’t worry, my beloved. I’ll soon be your big, handsome Jim again. But first, a shower.”
The sound of voices drifted in to me when I stepped out of the shower, drying myself on one of Amelie’s soft towels. I looked at the codpiece and thong, but decided I just couldn’t wear them any longer. By the time I headed out of Amelie’s bedroom, I realized that I knew the voices.
“—came back early because Drake insisted on seeing the doctor. It turned out to be nothing, of course, just a case of the sniffles.”
“Any illness in infants can be serious,” Drake’s voice rumbled in response. “I was not easy in my mind until the children had been seen by a proper doctor.”
“Anyway, we decided it wasn’t worth hauling the babies back to the yacht, so we figured we’d just swing by and pick up Jim and head back to London. Is it here?”
“Aw, man!” I said, marching in to the room. “You’re early? Fine! Just ruin my plans!”
The silence that greeted my arrival in Amelie’s sunny living room was thick enough to cut with a butter knife.
“Er . . .” Amelie said, her expression kind of shocked.
“Jim! What on earth are you doing in that form!” Aisling demand, her hands on her hips. “And naked!”
Drake narrowed his green eyes at me and muttered something about knowing better than to leave me on my own.
“It’s not my fault,” I told them both. “You can ask that no-good, conniving Guardian why I’m like this.”
“I certainly will,” Aisling said, staring.
Drake slapped his hand over her eyes and glared at me. “Put some clothing on, or I’ll see to it you have nothing left with which to shock Aisling.”
She giggled.
“I don’t want to wear clothing! I want my old form back. Let me change back, Ash. Please.”
“All right, you can change into your normal form,” she said, giggling again. “But I want to hear everything that happened. Only not right now—we had a message from Nora when we got to Drake’s house.”
I sighed with relief as I shifted back to my fabulous Newfoundland form, making a quick check to be sure everything was the way I had left it. “Boy, did I miss you, tail. And package. And four paws. And—”
“Enough,” Drake said, bowing to Amelie. “You will excuse us if we leave in haste. Aisling is anxious to get back to London.”
“Yes, I am. Come on, Jim! There’s work to be done,” Aisling said in her chipper voice as she took Drake’s hand. “Nora said there’s been a huge outbreak of kobolds and imps and all sorts of nasties in the last few days, and she’s overwhelmed and needs our help in cleaning everything up. It’ll be like old times tackling them together, huh?”
“Oh, man,” I said, covering my face with my paws. “Can’t I just sleep here for a couple of days? Cecile and I—”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, cuffing me on the shoulder. “You’ve had ten days together; that’s long enough. Besides, there’s nothing like a bit of action after a nice, long, relaxing vacation to get your blood pumping again, now is there?”
Thin Walls
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN
Christopher Golden is the author of such novels as The Myth Hunters, The Boys Are Back in Town, Of Saints and Shadows, and (with Tim Lebbon) The Map of Moments. He has also written books for teens and young adults, including Poison Ink, Soulless, and the thriller series Body of Evidence. He cowrote the lavishly illustrated novel Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire with Mike Mignola. Golden was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family. His original novels have been published in more than fourteen languages in countries around the world. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.
TIM Graham woke slowly, the sounds of raucous sex drawing him up into the waking world. He frowned sleepily and looked around in the darkness of his hotel room, as though he expected to find the perpetrators of the disturbance screwing acrobatically on one of the floral-patterned chairs near the balcony slider. He liked to keep a room as dark as possible for sleeping—something he’d picked up from Jenny—so the heavy curtains were drawn and the only light came from the ghostly glow of numbers on the alarm clock. If someone had been screwing in his room, he would barely have been able to see them.
But the sounds, he quickly realized, came from the room next door. The bed in there must have been head to head with his own, for he heard the lovers far too well, their grunts and moans and exhortations, the slap of flesh on flesh, the rhythmic tap of the headboard against the wall. Most hotel chains had long since learned to attach the headboards to the
wall so they wouldn’t knock against it when guests got busy, but apparently that bit of logic had been overlooked here.
At first, Tim smiled. Half asleep, he felt a mixture of envy and arousal.
“Yes, like that!” the woman sighed, repeating it several times, making it her mantra. Then she started to plead, almost whining, urging him on.
After several minutes of this, Tim’s erection brought him fully awake. He closed his eyes and put a pillow over his head, trying to force himself back to sleep, but he could not drown out the sounds. His pulse quickened. He wondered how long they could go on. Unless the guy was young—or old and using Viagra to regain his youth—it shouldn’t take that long.
He had heard people having sex in hotel rooms before. More than once, he and Jenny had been the people making too much noise. One time an angry old woman had banged on the wall and shouted at them to keep it down, and they had laughed and made love even more vocally. Tim had never banged on the wall himself. He didn’t like the idea of interrupting, and he had always felt a little thrill at overhearing.
So he listened, his erection painfully in need of attention. Jenny had been gone for just over a year. He was tempted to masturbate, but the image of a sad little pervert jerking off on the other side of the wall disturbed him, so instead he got up and went to the bathroom. With the light on, the bathroom fan drowned out most of the noise from next door. He splashed water on his face and looked in the mirror at the dark circles under his eyes. He had to wait for his erection to subside before he could aim for the toilet, but at last he managed to piss, then washed his hands and returned to bed.
The fucking continued.
“Christ,” he muttered.
He wanted sleep more than cheap thrills. The voyeur inside him seemed to have given up and gone to sleep, because though his cock stirred and rose once more, it only achieved half mast, apparently tempered by his growing irritation.
He laid his head back on the pillow and stared up at the darkness of the ceiling. Had they heard him go to the bathroom? The sound of the fan and the flush of the toilet? If so, it had not troubled them at all. If anything, the lovers had gotten louder. The man started to call her filthy names, making her his slut, his whore, his bitch, and she rose to what she seemed to consider a challenge, agreeing with him at every turn. If he’d ever tried that with Jenny, he would never have had sex again, but for these two it seemed a huge turn-on.