Oizys slowed down and turned to me as we walked along, side by side.
“You didn’t take care of the priestess,” she said. “I can see it in your face.”
“I talked to her,” I said, looking around as we moved.
Suddenly I was concerned about being alone in a dark forest with a demon who got her kicks from other people’s suffering.
“She’s not going anywhere,” I said. “She’s just a Voodoo woman who likes killing chickens in her spare time. I’ve done worse things—trust me.”
Oizys stopped and backed away, showing a micro expression of fear that she couldn’t conceal, taking my words as a threat.
“How do you know she’s not going to leave?” Oizys said more calmly.
“Because she’s a human. She can come and go any time she wants.”
“Do you have proof of that?”
I crossed my arms, my answer already prepared.
“She had a receipt.”
Oizys didn’t respond at first, but even I thought Marie’s explanation sounded pretty lame when I said it out loud.
“I thought you knew all about that woman,” Oizys said. “She is a human, but she’s also a high-level priestess in the Voodoo church. More importantly, she’s connected heavily to the loa. Trust me, she’s trapped here and trying to get her spirits to help her escape. That’s why she’s been increasing the number of blood sacrifices she’s making to them.”
“The receipt was from a music store in Sterling,” I said, my words sounding even dumber the second time around. “I saw the drum in her living room. And she said she was raised here.”
Oizys took another deep breath.
“I know you have a tough job and it can’t be easy working for—him,” she said. “And I am well aware of the sex magic a Voodoo priestess has at her fingertips. But you’re usually not that susceptible or gullible. Don’t you think it’s possible her priest or a member of her congregation gave her that drum and the receipt? Her church is in Sterling. Near a music store. Doesn’t that sound more plausible, given the fact that my assistant has been watching her for the last month and she hasn’t left Ashburn even once?”
I’ll admit, I felt a little stupid when she put it like that. But on the other hand, I wasn’t surprised that I sucked at being a demon’s enforcer.
“I’ve expended quite a bit of energy making her life as miserable as possible,” Oizys said. “If Marie could have, she would have left a long time ago.”
Unfortunately for me, Oizys was making a lot of sense.
I threw my hands up even as the gnawing in my stomach began. I wanted to tell Oizys it was my first day on the job and that she should give me a break, but I couldn’t. Instead, I clamped down on my anger and kept pretending I knew what I was doing.
“I’ll keep an eye on her and talk to her again. But let me ask you a question first.”
That caught her by surprise.
“Do you have any plans to leave Ashburn?”
“What a ridiculous notion,” she said. “I have everything I need here. I can’t kill anyone, which makes life a little boring at times, but inflicting misery on my lot of humans more than makes up for that. Ashburn is where I find the meaning in my life—it’s the key to my satisfaction.”
“And also where you get your power,” I said. “Maybe enough power to escape if you really set your mind to it.”
She straightened her posture and glared at me.
“My job satisfies me, but it doesn’t allow me nearly enough power to leave, even if I wanted to.”
She moved closer and over-enunciated her words.
“Did you at least remove the charms in her yard and get rid of those pesky zombies? With them gone, I could take care of this without your help.”
I scratched my chin.
“Having a charm-free, zombie-free yard isn’t one of Ahriman’s commandments.”
Her face turned a deep red, but I cut her off before she could say anything.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll look into it, like I said, in case you’re right.”
“No matter what happens, you still owe me,” she said with hesitation. “You cannot break your demon bond once it is given.”
“You mentioned that about a thousand times already,” I said as my anger rose.
I blinked, and in that instant, she was gone.
Alone in the dark forest, I headed back the way we’d entered. After fifteen minutes of following the trail, I figured I should have made it back to the parking lot already. My heart sped up, but I forced myself to stay calm and to continue following the trail. Finally, I saw a light through the trees.
When I emerged from the trail, I was greeted by silence and a nearly empty parking lot. The concert was over, and only a few stragglers hung out around their cars, slowly loading blankets and sleeping kids into their vehicles, while the band loaded their gear into two SUVs. I cringed when I saw Sybil standing at the picnic table in exactly the same place I’d left her.
“That was longer than five minutes,” she said, tapping her foot, with her arms folded across her chest.
I looked behind me, but the trailhead was gone. Before I could explain, Sybil started yelling at me.
“You know perfectly well that time passes differently in those woods,” she said. “I’ve been patient with you tonight, but I’m about to lose my mind. We only have a little time before the bar closes, and I’m beyond famished.”
I held up my hands, surrendering, as we walked back to the car without speaking.
As we pulled out of the parking lot, a group of runners darted past us and raised their middle fingers in unison.
“Assholes,” Sybil said in a whisper as she smoothed out her dress.
I wanted to ask why the running community seemed to hate me so much but decided to let it go for the time being.
The drive to the bar took all of two minutes, and luckily for me there was only one neon sign still lit across the street—the only place open for business at that time of night besides the gas station.
When we got out of the car, I patted the pockets of my khakis and cursed.
“I keep forgetting my money.”
Sybil grabbed my arm and opened her mouth—about to say something. Instead, she shook her head in silence and pulled open the door to the Broadlands Pub. The instant we stepped inside, I was greeted by loud, classic rock, the heady smell of freshly fried bar food, and a thick bouncer who was at least a foot taller than me.
When he saw me, he nodded and stepped aside.
“Good evening, sir,” he said, dropping his human guise long enough to show me a razor-sharp set of fangs and red eyes that burned like embers.
I did my best to keep my poker face as I nodded and walked past him into the bar. I hoped my exterior looked calm, because inside, I was completely freaking out.
Chapter 13
WE SAT IN THE back of the bar at a table with a glossy wood finish that stuck to my elbows, like it had never been fully cleaned. And even though no one was smoking, the place smelled of stale ashtrays, reminding me of being backstage at a concert.
But that’s where the similarities stopped.
Instead of hot groupies, old roadies, recovering addicts, and musicians, I was surrounded by middle-aged males in tight designer shirts hoping to get lucky and women wearing impractical heels and showing more cleavage than they actually had.
At the bar itself, a few people sat with stacks of quarters by their sides, popping coin after coin into the bar-top video game machines. Their eyes were as big as poker chips, and most of them looked like they hadn’t moved in hours.
All in all, it was the type of place I used to hang out at when I was starting out in the business—the kind of bar that paid half the door cover for three sets of someone else’s songs. But there was no band there that evening. It was karaoke night instead, and I cringed, waiting for the next drunk person to indulge in his or her fantasy of being a star.
Thankfully, it was o
nly a few minutes before a smiling blonde server showed up. She smiled and leaned across the table so we could hear her above the crowd.
“Something to drink to start you off?” she said, looking first at Sybil and then at me.
I waited for Sybil to order, but she was busy checking out the waitress to speak.
“Maker’s Mark, straight up for me,” I said.
I looked at Sybil, but she remained silent, staring.
When the server left, Sybil looked at me and grinned.
“I thought you were hungry,” I said. “And thirsty.”
She raised her eyebrows, scanned the bar, then turned back to me with one raised eyebrow.
“I am definitely hungry,” she said, then got up and walked away.
She’s lucky she’s hot, was all I could think as I watched her disappear into the mass of bar-goers.
The server returned with my whiskey a minute later, which was one of the oddest things I’d witnessed all day. Drinks from a crowded bar never came that fast.
My face must have shown my surprise, because when I looked up, the cute blonde was smiling nervously.
“I told Frank to make it as fast as he could.”
I studied her, trying to figure out if she was another one of us, but my gut told me she was human.
“Be sure to thank Frank,” I said. “And thank you, too. What’s your name?”
The server blushed and straightened her posture, showing off her considerable chest in the process.
“Hillary,” she said. “But people call me Hills.”
I nodded and took a sip of the whiskey. It burned a hot trail down my throat, straight to my stomach. It was pure bliss—so good that I closed my eyes and sighed.
When I opened them again, Hills was still there.
“Do I have to pay as I go?” I asked, suddenly hoping Sybil hadn’t gone far.
Hills giggled nervously then shook her head.
“They didn’t tell me you were funny,” she said with a lopsided grin. I studied the lines on her face, and she muttered something underneath her breath.
“What was that?” I asked.
She leaned forward, her chest close enough that I finally realized why her nickname was Hills.
“I said I’m new here,” she said, whispering directly into my ear. “But the owner told me how to treat you—that everything’s on the house,” she said. Then she pulled back a few inches and stared at me with her soft blue eyes.
She was oozing sexuality, and having her that close sparked something in my gut—that same dark flame I’d felt with Sybil in the back of the bookstore. If it had been simple lust, I would have recognized it, but it felt like something deeper and more sinister.
“I asked him if he really meant everything,” she said, still looking into my eyes.
She swallowed hard and smiled.
“He said everything meant everything.”
I took another sip of whiskey and then one more for good luck.
When I didn’t respond, she started to leave, disappointed.
“Maybe you should bring me another one of these,” I said, holding up my glass.
Piercing the noise of the bar, a drunk businessman started singing Smoke Gets In Your Eyes in a key in which it was never meant to be sung.
“Make that two, if they’re on the house. I have a feeling I’m going to need them.”
She smiled and hurried away.
“I thought only rock stars and actors got that kind of treatment,” I murmured to myself, shaking my head.
When I threw back the rest of my drink, I tasted the nuances of the alcohol more clearly and distinctly than I ever had as a human. The fire water tasted better, more intense, and I could almost smell the wood of the barrel it had been stored in. But it wasn’t hitting me the way alcohol usually did, and I was still stone cold sober.
I leaned back and observed the steady influx of customers. Within half-an-hour, all the tables were filled, and the din in the bar kept getting louder, until I could barely hear Hills when she showed up with my drinks and some food I hadn’t ordered.
“The owner said to bring this. He said you’d like it,” she yelled over the karaoke singer’s clunky voice.
The cheese sticks and french fries she placed in front of me weren’t fine cuisine, but they looked and smelled like heaven to me at that moment.
I took a swig of Maker’s Mark and watched Hills walk away. The drink tasted as good as the first one, but it still wasn’t having the desired effect on me. With a shrug, I dug into my food and mulled over the Marie situation.
She’d seemed honest to me. A little weird, but truthful. But as much as I wanted to trust my instincts with her, I kept hearing Oizys in my head, telling me the Voodoo priestess was playing me for a fool. By the time I was on my second cheese stick, I was starting to wonder whether or not Marie had really asked her loa to help her escape.
Once the thought started bouncing around in my head, the compulsion spell kicked in and my stomach started churning, trying to force me to do my job right away.
“You can rumble all you want,” I said to my stomach. “But I’m not doing anything about Marie tonight.”
The gnawing inside me persisted anyway, forcing me to think about Marie while I gritted my teeth and shoved more fries into my mouth. In the end, I made up my mind to visit Marie again the next day, and once I did, Ahriman’s spell relaxed its hold on me and let me finally relax.
As I chewed the last french fry, a middle-aged couple stepped up to the karaoke mic and started their rendition of Meat Loaf’s Paradise by the Dashboard Light. I closed my eyes and cradled my head in my hands, preparing for nine minutes of hell. When I did, I could hear all the conversations going on at the bar at once, like they were all speaking directly into my ears.
Most of the discussions were in English, but the guttural voices I heard weren’t human. They were deep and gravelly and the words they formed sounded more like animals growling than people speaking. At first, it was all just a jumble of words and noises, but I found that if I focused on one conversation at a time, I could make sense of what they were saying.
“Remember that one guy who made his pentagram out of sugar?” one of the voices said. “Too bad for him that he had mice. They ate through his lines, and I marched right up to the twit and had myself a nice dinner.”
“Those were the good old days, Ren—back before you had the bright idea to check out Virginia. Worst decision of my life, following you that day.”
I looked up and scanned the tables until I found lips moving in sync with what I was hearing. Ren was a stocky man in his late 40s, and his friend had black hair that hung past his ears and a thin face. When they noticed me looking at them, they dropped their human guises momentarily, just like the bouncer had done, and bowed their horned heads with reverence.
At least Ahriman had been honest about one thing. Ashburn really was filled with demons.
I tuned in to another conversation where three guys were arguing about the best way to torture John for eternity. One guy preferred the idea of a beast from Hell eating John’s genitalia every morning until the end of time. Unfortunately, that meant he was talking about a monster eating my manly parts over and over again, and that was definitely not cool.
After hearing that, I tried to keep eating, but I was suddenly wary of my surroundings—watching for anyone who looked like they wanted to fight me or worse. I paused mid-cheese stick, looking around, but as far as I could tell, no one was paying any attention to me.
Then I spotted the three young guys hunched over their beers, sitting at the far end of the bar, giving me the stink-eye.
Unlike the other tables, this bunch looked like they were humans. They weren’t saying anything, but they glared at me with blatant hostility. Two of them were huge but otherwise unremarkable. The third man was tatted-up heavily on his arms and neck and wore several pieces of polished silver jewelry. He also wore sunglasses, which didn’t look nearly as cool as he thou
ght it did in a dark bar.
I kept watching them watch me until Sybil sat down and started rubbing my thigh with her hand. I started to ask her if she knew who my three admirers were, but when I turned back to the bar, they were gone.
“What’s wrong?” she said, staring with disdain at the remaining crumbs of fried food on my plate.
“I was thinking about Marie, the Voodoo priestess I spoke with earlier.”
“And who is Marie, exactly?” she said, forcing a smile.
I finished my second Maker’s Mark, making her wait on purpose. I had the feeling John hadn’t been very patient with her, and I was afraid being too nice might give away my secret.
I set my glass down and contemplated it for a few seconds before responding.
“Her name is Marie Lacroix, and Oizys thinks she’s planning an escape. But when I spoke to her, she said she was a human. A Voodoo practitioner, but still just a human. And I believed her.”
Sybil narrowed her eyes at me.
“Did you lose your goggles?” she said.
“I forgot to wear them,” I said, not knowing what she was talking about and hoping she wouldn’t notice.
“I’ve never heard of her,” she said. “But I don’t trust anything Oizys says. Get your goggles, bust into this Marie’s house tomorrow, and take a look at her for yourself. That’s the only way you’ll really know if she’s one of us or one of them.”
She had a good point, although first I had to find the magic goggles she was talking about. Before I could learn more about them, Hills showed up wearing street clothes and a huge smile
Sybil must have seen my reaction. She grinned and nodded toward the server.
“I think you already know Hillary,” she said, crossing her arms. “She’s new here, but Ramond said she could get off work early and come play with us. She lives in Sterling, but I told her she could stay with us tonight.”
I looked at Sybil, but she stood up and took Hillary by the arm.
“Are you coming?” she said to me.
I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I didn’t need to be asked twice. Together, the three of us headed for the exit, past my favorite bouncer, and into the parking lot.
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