We passed a salon and spa with a chalk sign outside that advertised a sale on Botox. Thankfully, she kept walking.
Next up was the ABC store. For a moment, my hopes rose, but she moved past it as well. I walked faster to keep up with the strides of her long legs.
In quick succession, we passed a store called Enchanted Scrapbooking, a grocery store, a children’s martial arts studio, a gym called The Box, a place filled with nothing but mailboxes, a pet store, a store decorated completely in pink called Ms. Fancy, and of course, a Chinese restaurant.
And still, John’s hot girlfriend continued on.
Next up was a running store, then an Indian restaurant, and finally a used bookstore. The sign painted on the window read, Ancient Pages. Finally, a store I’d actually shop in. When the woman stopped, I exhaled with relief. I’d always loved books—reading and collecting them—and if I had to own something besides a music store, a bookstore would be next on my list.
The woman in red turned, waiting for me to unlock the door.
I reached into my pocket, took out the key to the Audi, and noticed there was another key on the same ring.
“Are you going to let me in?” she said, with a devilish grin.
“I’m on it...babe,” I said, cringing at how stupid that word sounded coming out of my mouth.
Thankfully, the key fit the lock.
Once inside, she flicked on the lights but left the sign turned so the Closed side was facing outward.
The store wasn’t large, but it was comfortable and had been designed to resemble someone’s personal home library, with a few cushioned reading chairs, a small secretary’s desk, and an oriental rug. The shelves were over-stuffed with books, most of them spine-out and covered with a light patina of dust.
Inhaling the intoxicating and heady scent of old paper and dust was bliss—the opposite of what I’d grown used to in the antiseptic sterility of the hospital and my studio toward the end of my life.
“Are you coming?” the woman said, beckoning me with a curled finger to the back of the store.
Before I could get far, she pulled me behind a shabby set of curtains that separated the front and back of the store. It afforded the tiny back room the smallest amount of privacy, and within seconds, we were kissing again.
And it was good.
But as most of my body surged with excitement, my chest tightened with anxiety. I may have looked like John, but I wasn’t him, even if she didn’t know that yet. It was tempting to go with flow and enjoy myself, but the annoying voice of morality wouldn’t shut up.
I started to pull away, in a half-hearted attempt to do the right thing, but she kissed me harder as the passion between us heated up and her groping turned more physical. The hotter things became, the more I felt a darkness rising inside me—a lust fueled by animal cravings at a level I’d never before experienced.
The next thing I knew, the voice of reason in my head stopped talking, and my instincts took control.
Before I could let loose, I heard a woman’s voice through the fog of hormones, calling to me from the front of the store.
“Are you back there, John? I need to speak with you immediately.”
I looked at John’s girlfriend in time to see her face distort into a savage snarl, complete with sharpened fangs and glowing red eyes. My eyebrows raised and my libido sunk as I switched from passion to fight-or-flight mode.
My heart slammed against the wall of my chest, confusion and fear filling my veins. But as I watched, her face softened again, and she was once again beautiful. She stood tall and adjusted her dress, then her hair.
“You’d better see what she wants,” she said with her arms crossed in front of her chest. “You know she won’t go away. She never does.”
Chapter 8
I ADJUSTED MY polo shirt and stepped out from behind the curtain, with John’s girlfriend by my side. There in the middle of the store stood the perfect picture of a high school librarian with the morning light shimmering off her tightly wrapped bun of blonde hair. Her form-fitting skirt ended below her knees, and her blouse was buttoned up to her neck, making it look like she was bound by her clothing instead of wearing it. She was attractive in a snooty way but seemed like the kind of person who would punish me for something I hadn’t yet done.
“I don’t think we’re open yet,” I said casually as I checked to make sure my zipper was closed.
The woman looked past me and glared at John’s girlfriend.
“Good morning, Sybil,” she said in an icy voice. “John and I need to speak in private—about business.”
Sybil tilted her head and gave the woman a tight smile.
“We were about to conduct some business of our own when you interrupted, Oizys. Don’t you have something better to do, like handing out fines to people for putting their trash cans out too early?”
Oizys chuckled. Her mouth spread into a smile that grew larger and larger until it seemed too wide for her face.
“Sadly, maintaining a neat and tidy neighborhood is as close to godliness as I will ever get,” she said. “The fact that I enjoy my work is simply icing on the cake.”
The last thing I wanted was to stop kissing Sybil, but I needed to slow things down until I could sort out my moral dilemma, and Oizys provided the perfect excuse. Besides, as Oizys stood there with her hands on her hips, she seemed deadly serious about needing to talk with me.
“I’m sure it won’t take long,” I said with a sigh.
Sybil leaned in and kissed me on the lips. She lingered longer than was appropriate, and I got the feeling she wasn’t kissing me as much as she was claiming her territory—a point not lost on Oizys.
“I had a long night and need to sleep,” Sybil said to me. “I’ll meet you at the concert later, like we planned. Don’t make me wait too long.”
I didn’t know what concert she was talking about, but I nodded and watched her strut past Oizys on her way out the door.
“You’re nicer than usual,” Oizys said. “You look different too. Maybe it’s because you’re not wearing those ridiculous goggles for once, although I’m not sure I like the new you.”
Before I could figure out how to respond, she moved closer and sniffed my neck, just like the dog had done earlier. I wasn’t sure whether that was the way supernatural beings greeted each other or if it was just an Ashburn thing. But when I leaned forward, ready to take a big whiff of her neck, she turned away and sat down in one of the store’s plush reading chairs.
“I have information that will interest you,” she said, crossing her legs.
I bobbed my head, pretending to understand what she was talking about, while she tapped her foot, waiting.
It was a Mexican standoff, and I knew I’d be the first one to cave. After all, I had nothing to offer, whereas she possessed news I evidently couldn’t wait to hear.
“You win,” I said. “What do you want to tell me? Did you figure out a way to leave town?”
Subtlety had never been my strong point.
“There’s no need to brag, just because you can leave this place whenever you wish.”
I tried hard to suppress my smile, but inside I was ecstatic, because if John knew how to leave Ashburn, that meant it was possible. All I had to do was figure out how he did it. For the first time that day, I was hopeful.
“I’m stuck here like the rest of us,” I said, holding her gaze. “If I could leave, I would.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “But I believe someone else has figured a way out of here, and I believe they will attempt their escape any day now.”
I didn’t care if every supernatural entity in town left Ashburn and moved to the beach. But I didn’t want them leaving before me. Ahriman never said what he’d do to me if someone broke out of Ashburn on my watch, but he knew my real name, and that meant I needed to be careful.
I hadn’t been in my new job for even an hour, and already I had to deal with something I wasn’t prepared for.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“If I told you,” she said, with an evil grin, “I’d be ratting out one of my fellow inmates, and although I don’t mind compromising what ethics I still have, doing so doesn’t come cheap. I would expect you to compensate above and beyond our normal arrangement.”
“How much do you want?” I said, remembering I still didn’t have any money.
“It’s not like you to make jokes, especially when discussing something this serious,” she said. “You know what I want from you.”
“Humor me, and tell me anyway,” I said.
“I want you to owe me—to be in my debt.”
“Consider it done,” I said. “Now, tell me who it is.”
She was silent for a moment before speaking.
“Give me your demon bond, first.”
I didn’t know whether giving my demon bond required a special hand shake or a magic word or a pony, but I’d role-played stranger things in my Dungeons and Dragons days, so I decided to wing it. I closed my eyes and counted to three while I pretended to be contemplating something deep and mystical. When I opened my eyes, I looked at her as intensely as I could.
“My bond is given,” I said.
To my surprise, she accepted my vow with a smile. In hindsight, her reaction should’ve been my first clue that owing her a favor wasn’t a good idea. That being said, once I was in her debt, she kept her promise and told me everything.
“One of my human homeowners—the Voodoo priestess I’ve told you about—she’s up to no good,” she said with a smirk. “Marie Lacroix received tickets from authorities twice in the last few weeks for sacrificing livestock in her living room—chickens, I believe. She was offering more gifts to those damn ancestral spirits of hers again—her loa. She told the Sheriff it was all an innocent part of her religion, but I’m sure she was asking for a favor from them. And there’s only one reason she’d need the power of her loa—to break through Ahriman’s spells that keep us here.”
She crossed her arms, waiting for my reaction.
“You figured all that out because she killed a few chickens?” I said.
“The animal sacrifices make it easier for her to attract the loa’s attention. If she’s bonded with the right ancestor and curried his favor, she may have figured out a way to leave Ashburn. Voodoo spirits are notoriously clever and love to meddle in the affairs of the living.”
“But she’s a human.”
Oizys glared at me, exasperated.
“You’re trying my patience today,” she said. “Yes, she’s human, but she still has supernatural power, and Ahriman will still be angry if she escapes.”
“How long before you think she’ll try it?” I said.
Oizys scrunched up her lips, acting like she was trying to remember something, but I could tell she was faking it—trying to build the drama—making me wait.
“My administrative assistant has been watching her house, but he hasn’t learned much yet. Her residence is protected by a web of Voodoo spells and charms, and her front door is guarded by a nest of zombies working her garden.”
“Did you say she has zombies for gardeners?” I asked. “As in the undead walking the earth, eating human flesh and brains kind of zombies?”
Oizys shook her head and gave a half smile.
“Why are you treating me this way today, John? You know very well that a Voodoo priestess would own Haitian zombies to do her bidding.”
Oizys stood up, then handed me her business card with an address written on the back of it.
“Regardless of which creatures are in her employ, I know you’ll handle this appropriately, as you always have with matters like these in the past.”
“I’m grateful for the tip,” I said. “But other than me owing you a favor, why are you so concerned about her escaping.”
Oizys glanced at her shoes.
“I do not like when residents disobey my rules.”
I nodded, although I knew she was hiding something.
“If you let one person get away with something, I find there’s often a domino effect, and then it’s nothing but work, work, work to get everyone back in line again. That being said, I will leave you to your business. I’m sure you will want to deal with the priestess as soon as possible.”
“Absolutely,” I said as Oizys turned and hurried out the door, leaving me in a wake of blissful silence.
I stepped to the window to make sure she was really gone. As her pink VW Beetle pulled away, I shook my head at her MAKUHRT vanity plate.
With the shop to myself, I checked out a few books on one of the shelves. I’d always been a big reader of fiction—all the way from fantasy to the classics—but I didn’t recognize any of the titles I picked up, which meant they were either very rare, very expensive, or both.
After a few minutes of poking around, I found the religion section and pulled out a book called “The Serpent and the Rainbow: A Harvard Scientist’s Astonishing Journey into the Secret Societies of Haitian Voodoo, Zombies, and Magic.”
I slouched in the reading chair and made it about half-way through the first page before my eyes started to close, so I set the book aside for later. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and tried to process my day. I’d woken up that morning, alive but trapped in a demon’s body and stuck in the suburbs of Ashburn with no way to leave for the next ten years. And to top it off, I was being forced to act as Ahriman’s enforcer—a job for which I was highly unqualified. I needed to sit for a while and get my head straight, but as soon as I closed my eyes, I felt a tugging in my gut, a spell-driven compulsion I couldn’t control or resist to look into the Marie Lacroix matter right away.
I shut off the store lights and stepped outside onto the sidewalk. The sun was higher in the sky, and the shopping center was alive with a constant flow of European luxury performance cars, oversized trucks, and SUVs.
When I turned to lock up the shop, I noticed a petite Asian woman in front of the Thai restaurant next door, standing only a few feet away from me.
She bowed her head without looking at me.
“Good morning, David,” she said in a sweet tone that was familiar and alien to me at the same time. “I have many names, but you may call me Rose. You would honor me if you were to join me for a meal when you find the time. You are always welcome in my restaurant, and the food is quite good I assure you.”
“That’s very nice of you,” I said with a disinterested smile as I turned the key in the lock.
A fraction of a second later, I realized Rose had just called me David, but when I looked up, she was gone.
Chapter 9
MY STOMACH YELLED at me to visit Marie, but my brain wanted to find Rose. I put my face to the glass door of the Thai Restaurant and tried to spot her walking around inside. But the place was dark, and the chairs were turned upside down, resting on the tops of the tables.
I stepped back and read the sign—Bangrak Thai. I had no idea what Bangrak meant, but the fact that its owner knew who I was left me unsettled and curious. Unsettled, because I was paranoid about supernatural beings and names. Curious, because if she knew who I was, maybe she knew other things as well, including how to get out of Ashburn.
I decided to take her up on her offer as soon as possible, but first, I had a job to do. As soon as I was in the car, I pulled out the business card Oizys had given me and punched Marie’s address into the car’s GPS.
Soon, I was cruising through the streets of Ashburn, and my brain wandered to my fantasy of becoming a mysterious, recluse musician, putting out new songs on a regular basis while living a life of secrecy and shunning public adoration.
As I thought things through, I wondered if I’d be better off starting over from scratch, with a whole new identity. Maybe not being David Steele anymore was a blessing in disguise. For one thing, my new face was younger and, in all honesty, better looking than my old one. The best part of it was that I’d no longer be known as the guy who sang the Yeah, Yeah song. For the first ti
me in decades, my music would be free to stand on its own again.
I smiled as I reached over to turn on the stereo, but as I passed another shopping center, a sign featuring a golden harp superimposed on a musical staff caught my eye. And at the bottom of the sign was a single beautiful word.
Music.
Normally, visiting a music shop called Music would be as bad as buying a can of soup labeled Soup or shopping at a store called Store. But the place probably sold guitars, and I was seriously in need of one, so I pulled into the parking lot and decided the Voodoo priestess could wait a little longer.
When I walked in, I realized at once what I’d found. It was a music store, as advertised, but it was mostly there to serve the needs of young students and the beginner hobbyist who had more money than common sense.
Bins of sheet music filled the middle of the store, and black instrument cases of every size and shape teetered in sloppy stacks in the back corner. But the walls were what interested me. That was where the guitars were. I didn’t have to get very close to see they were the bottom-of-the-line student models. But they had strings, and I was willing to bet they made a sound when strummed. And anything would be an improvement over what I currently had for a guitar, which was exactly nothing.
As I looked them over, trying to pick out the best of the worst, someone behind me cleared his throat. I turned around and saw a short, pudgy man with light brown skin and a bushy black mustache standing behind the counter. His substantial eyebrows shot up and his eyes widened when he saw my face. I didn’t know why, but he looked at me with equal parts surprise and fear, the same way Sybil had when I first ran into her outside the Moon Dollarz.
“Mind if I try one?” I said, nodding toward one of the guitars on the wall.
“You may do whatever you please in my store,” he said as he straightened items on his counter that didn’t need straightening.
I pulled down one of the Fender imitations, knowing it wasn’t going to be a high-quality instrument. Touching the thing confirmed it. The weight was off—too light to be a real Telecaster. The pickups were cheap, and the neck was a little bowed.
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