by J. T. Bock
“I can.”
Blue filled my senses. The Krampus imposter’s face grew slack, his red eyes eerie in combination with the faint smile on his lips.
“Do that to me later?” I grinned at Gregory. Blue stuff was better than the best heroin. I’d yet to experience angel sex under the influence and was inspired to check that one off my list.
“To the hotel first, where we can conduct our interrogation without the smell and sound of these crazy humans. Then the hot tub that you are so fixated on. Then I will seduce you with all the power I possess.”
I drew in a shaky breath and stood, pulling the entranced human to his feet. “Deal. But if we find the killer is just some psychotic human, I get oral.”
***
We strolled through the hotel lobby with an entranced human dressed as Krampus — one that looked like half his face had melted off. Gregory never seems to think about these things. Six billion years as the big cheese in Aaru had made him rather blind to other’s opinions and reactions – especially human reactions. Our companion had garnered no more than curious stares from the people on the streets. The hotel employees reacted differently.
“Why is that human hiding behind the desk?” Gregory asked. “I’ll admit you smell particularly foul after your heroin experience, but not enough to warrant running away or screaming.”
I left Gregory with our pseudo-Krampus and vaulted the desk. The woman was trying to wedge herself under a shelf and smacked her head on it as I landed in a crouch before her.
“Hide,” she hissed.
“Why?” I hissed back.
“Krampus. If you value your life, be quiet and stay down.”
I peeked over the top of the counter. Gregory was tapping his foot impatiently while Aaron Blau stared slack-jawed at the floor. A line of drool extended a few inches from his mouth. Whatever Gregory was doing to the guy, it was total overkill.
“It’s a human in a costume,” I whispered, kneeling back down. “We found him in the slums. I think he’s really drunk, or he’s had a blow to the head.”
Or an angel reduced him to a drooling imbecile. Hopefully his brain function could be restored later, or this interrogation would be very short.
The woman lifted a skeptical eyebrow and scooted out from under the shelf. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. My boyfriend and I walked across town with him. Why are you all so afraid of Krampus? Isn’t that just a myth to scare children into behaving?”
She shot me a wary glance. “It’s not a myth, and it scares more than children into behaving. That’s why we don’t book visitors during this week. The hotel would have been empty if that travel service hadn’t screwed up.” The woman stood, brushing her skirt down and smoothing her hair. “Can you imagine how our reputation would suffer if Krampus took one of our guests? I just need you both to be good for one week, then you’ll be safe.”
Aaron hardly seemed threatening. Actually, he looked like he was about to lose control of his bowels. Gregory had propped him in a corner and was helping himself to a cup of the hotel coffee.
“That guy doesn’t look capable of taking an aspirin, let alone dragging an adult off to devour. He’s just a human, and there’s no Krampus.”
The desk clerk huffed and began to straighten her pens. “Every year since before I was born, this has been happening — one sinner per night for seven nights sometime between winter solstice and New Year’s Day. Just make sure it’s not you, okay?”
“Sure.” I motioned to Gregory, and we headed up to our room, followed by a staggering, costumed human. Once inside, Gregory tossed his lobby coffee into the sink with a sound of disgust and fired up the cappuccino machine.
“Can you undo whatever you did to this guy so we can ask our questions, throw him off the balcony, then head for the hot tub?”
“You might want to tie him to a chair or something first. Did you bring any of your duct tape?”
I never left home without it. But Gregory wasn’t normally one to encourage my overzealous methods of restraint. I did some toe tapping of my own until he finally turned from the coffee machine to face me.
“The human is fighting my influence. He has a remarkable level of concentration – one I’m not used to encountering, especially from a human.”
I couldn’t resist teasing him. “Sure you haven’t become one of my Fallen? Better check your halo. All those snack foods and coffee have surely taken a toll on your vibration levels.”
Poking at the human, I ignored Gregory’s scowl. “Your power is faltering, dying a bit each day. Next thing you know, those pretty wings are going to rot off.”
He walked toward me, purposeful and controlled. What wasn’t controlled was the burst of power than scorched me. My pulse quickened. “I’ll save a spot for you in Hel, right beside me, as my consort. I wonder if you’ll have horns and a ta – eeek!”
I’d been rudely cut off by a pair of hands around my neck. Looking up as best as I could without being able to tilt my head, I saw his black eyes, the indistinct shimmer as he lost control over his form. If there was one sin this angel had mastered, it was anger. Heat scorched through me, desire pooling low in my torso as my vision started to close in. Just before I lost consciousness, he loosened his grip. I would have fallen if he hadn’t been considerate enough to hold me upright.
“I am not losing my powers, or my halo, and you’ll see me dead before I ever lose my wings. I may indulge in minor sin with you, my Cockroach, but my vibration levels remain centered.”
I rolled my eyes, thinking that the resemblance between him and his pompous brother, Gabriel, was never so pronounced. “Then why can’t you manage to subdue a lowly human without resorting to some kind of angelic lobotomy?”
Before Gregory could reply, a chair bounced off his back to crash into the wall beside us. Stunned, we stared at each other, openmouthed as a lamp followed the chair. My angel spun around, and I peeked from under his arm, unwilling to give up the shield-like qualities of his bulk if there were more projectiles incoming.
“Not the coffee machine!” Gregory roared.
The compulsion in his words nearly dropped me to my knees, but Aaron Blau only paused, dangling the precious machine from extended arms.
“Let me go or the cappuccino maker gets it,” he proclaimed dramatically.
“Oh for fuck sake.” I tried to get around Gregory, but he held me in place.
“Put it down. Put it down now, or I let her kill you.”
Angelic ethics were surprisingly flexible, especially when it came to caffeinated beverages.
“She can’t harm me.” The human shifted the coffeemaker to one hand, which trembled under the weight, and pulled a bottle from around his neck. “Holy water. If she comes near me, I’ll turn her into a smoking pile of ash.”
Idiot. The cappuccino machine tilted sideways, and I took advantage of Gregory’s distraction to dart around him, toward the imposter. Water hit my face, and, surprisingly, it hurt like fuck. Holy water, my ass — the guy had a vial filled with bleach.
Bleach in the eyes was bad enough, but I was pretty sure the shit had ruined what was one of my favorite shirts. I swung wildly, hoping to nail the guy with a solid right hook. Instead, my hand hit something smooth and inflexible. I heard a crash and reached out blindly, managing to grab the imposter by the front of his furry costume.
“Fucker. I’m going to rip your limbs off one joint at a time for that. I’m going to—“
“Cockroach, shouldn’t you leave him alive for interrogation? You can kill him afterward.”
I healed my eyes and blinked at the angel. He was staring mournfully down at the broken cappuccino machine.
“You know they have one in every room. One phone call and housekeeping will bring up another.”
He sighed. “No need.” With a wave of his hand, the machine was repaired, back on the little round table and heating up to brew.
“What’s going on in this town?” I turned up the mean full force a
s I faced the guy, figuring if he could resist Gregory, I’d need to break out the big guns.
He stared back at me and raised his chin. “He’ll get you. I’m sure you’re on the list.”
“Yeah, I’m sure I am too. Baddest dog in the whole damned town. So, you guys all dress up as Krampus, go down some kind of police blotter list and take out the trash? Who else is in on this?”
He clamped his lips tight and eyed the door.
“I hear pinky fingers are surprisingly sensitive, in spite of their general uselessness.” Transferring my grip on his costume to one hand, I grabbed the digit in question, twisting it sharply. He jerked and squealed, but I turned on the demon power and held him tightly.
“No! Krampus really does come and kill seven sinners — one each night. Sometimes we have more than seven, so a few of us dress up and scare the others. Get them to leave town and not come back. I never hurt anyone. Never.”
Krampus was safely in Hel last I knew, but my senses said this guy was telling the truth.
“Who decides which sinners get killed and which get scared?”
“The list. The list decides. Owww, stop with the finger. Stop!”
I loosened my grip a fraction. “Where does this list come from?”
“The book. The holy book.”
Somehow I doubted he meant the bible.
“Who has this book?”
“I don’t know.” He yelped as I twisted his finger again. “I swear, I don’t know! This has been going on at least since my grandparents were alive. A few of us just decided to use the cleansing as an excuse to clean up the town a bit further.”
Great. He really was a vigilante operating under the cover of a greater supernatural event. We’d reached a dead end, and I should want nothing more than to kill this guy and get into a hot tub naked with my angel, but there were a few things I was curious about. “So why doesn’t everyone just leave town for a week? Board everything up and go to Spain or something? That way, when the demon gets here, there’s an empty town. After Christmas, all the riffraff can move back in.”
“Residents of the town can be on it regardless of their current location. And whoever is here during the cleansing week also might be on the list. That’s why we don’t allow tourists this week.”
“Why don’t the townspeople banish the demon? Or call in a priest? Or blow his damned head of with a .45?”
The imposter frowned. “Why should we? He’s more of a deterrent than any police force. He only targets criminals, and a crime-free town is one that appeals to tourists. We’ve got a higher per-capita income than eighty percent of the cities in the Alps. We’re happy he comes to town.”
Open arms both to Santa and this demon. I turned to Gregory in exasperation. The humans welcomed him. None of this was within my jurisdiction as Germany didn’t seem to have FICO scores. If the angels wanted to go chasing a part-time demon the humans cheered on, then good for them, but I was done and ready to continue my vacation.
“Should I just let him go, or throw him off the balcony?” I was pretty sure what Gregory’s response would be, but it didn’t hurt to ask, just in case. Imagine my surprise when he took a quick look at the steaming cup of cappuccino, milk frothing in a swirl at the rim, then over toward the glass door.
“Toss him off the balcony. Or rip him apart limb from limb. Your choice, darling.”
The human squealed. “But you fixed it. And it wasn’t my fault it broke; it was hers.”
Gregory shook his head. “I commanded you to put it down, and you did not. What kind of angel would I be if I didn’t live up to my commitments? I truly would be on the road to Hel if I started down that path.”
I let go of the human’s pinky and made a lunge for his scrawny neck, but he was stronger and faster than he appeared. With an agile twist that left me holding a plastic horn and a fist full of fake fur, he ripped free and darted toward the exit. I dove and got a solid wooden door in the face as he wrenched it open. Before I could reach my arms around it, he was through the doorway and halfway down the hall.
Spinning around, I glared accusingly at Gregory, who had taken the cappuccino from the machine. “What the fuck, asshole? Why didn’t you grab him? I thought you wanted me to kill him?”
The angel shrugged. “You might be willing to complete a four-nine-five report over a beverage machine, but I am not. You couldn’t manage to restrain a paltry human on your own? His escape is the price you pay for such ineptitude.”
Asshole indeed, although I probably deserved it after teasing him about his own skills in attempting to restrain the human. I tried to project a frostiness that would have rivaled Gabriel’s. Gregory smiled in sympathy and extended the cup of coffee toward me. “Not that it matters, but the human has unfortunately tripped on his way down the stairs and broken his neck. No doubt, the costume hindered his balance in some way.”
Damn, this angel was scary. Had Gregory used his omnipotence and determined the likelihood of the man’s accident, or orchestrated it? Either way, he’d managed all this without implicating himself. What a way to avoid the report. I’d have to remember this.
“Perhaps you’ll have more skill when we catch the actual demon. Here, take this coffee. I’m going to make another for myself.”
I refused to go any further with this demon hunt of his, although I did take the cappuccino. “Fuck you. Catch the demon on your own. I’m going to chill in the hot tub with a bottle of vodka. It’s not my business if some demon wants to run around for a week killing humans. I’ve done enough work for one night.”
Gregory’s wave of heat quickly snuffed my paltry attempt at the opposite, and I found myself struggling to meet his eyes. He might think this was somehow my responsibility with his convoluted angel logic, but I wasn’t buying it. Nope. Not happening. No way in hell. It was hot tub and booze for me. Nope.
The angel sighed, taking the second cup of cappuccino from the maker and downing it in a gulp. “Okay, Cockroach. I’m sorry I won’t be joining you in the hot tub this evening, but it would be a gross dereliction of duty for me to neglect to follow up on reports of a demon who was violating the terms of the treaty. Have a lovely evening. I’ll see you in the morning, after I’ve sent this trespasser to his eternal rest.”
There was no anger, no slamming of doors, no subtle insults, but I couldn’t help but feel somewhat ashamed at the disappointed look in my angel’s black eyes as he left me alone in our room.
***
There was no hot tub or vodka for me either that evening. Yeah, I went so far as to go down to the patio, stare at the inviting water, picturesquely bubbling away with snow-capped peaks in the background. That shitty feeling just wouldn’t go away, so, instead, I headed out into the silent streets of the town, making my way back toward the saint’s shrine where Joanna Marsh claimed to have first seen the demon.
Was this how life was going to be with Gregory? Him haring off every time duty called? I guess that’s what I got for loving an angel and not some other, less honor-bound being. I had a choice before me: join him and make working with him part of my life too, or reconcile myself to being ditched whenever some demon, or angelic issue, cropped up.
I didn’t give three shits about this demon or his “trespass”, but any moment I spent with Gregory was better than being alone. How weird that I’d rather sit through a boring lecture about right order and vibration than drink vodka solo in a hot tub. But, it was true. With a quick kick at a broken cobblestone, I spun about to leave the shrine behind and go in search of my angel.
Everything went dark. Rough fabric scratched along the exposed skin of my face, and strong arms heaved me into the air. With a whoosh, my assailant slammed me to the ground and beat me with something round and hard. I was so shocked that it took me a moment to realize what was going on – and to sense that the being on the other end of the weapon was a demon.
“You’ll pay for this, asshole!” I extended claws and ripped the burlap from my body, trying to grab the thin w
ooden rod through the tears.
The demon yelped and gave me one last whack before taking off down the street. I headed after him, hindered by the strips of cloth that tangled around my legs and arms. All I could see as I gave chase was a dark shape, complete with furry legs and a tail.
“Stop him,” I shouted. Right. Even if anyone were out and about this town at night, they weren’t going to tackle a demon. My assailant ducked around parked cars as I struggled to keep up. Just as I began to gain on him, the demon spun about, flinging the wooden stick at me with amazing aim. My only saving grace was that I stumbled on the tatters of the burlap sack and face-planted into the ground as it whizzed over my head.
By the time I’d gotten to my feet and ripped the rest of the bag from my body, he’d disappeared. I’d seen his face, though – black as coal with horns and a long tongue that had mocked me with its forked end. Bastard.
Picking up the remains of the burlap bag and the stick, I headed in the general direction I’d seen the demon run, banging on doors to ask if anyone had seen a furry, horned man with a long tongue. The few that answered my persistent knocking started in alarm at my questions and quickly denied any knowledge of my assailant or his whereabouts.
Krampus, but not Krampus. The town was eerily silent as I approached the center square. Every building was dark and shuttered, seeming to hide behind the faint swirl of blowing snow. I plopped down on the rim of a bricked fountain that decorated the middle of a roundabout and wondered about the demon’s identity. Who would dare to impersonate Krampus’s favorite form? This was clearly a demon, not a human, as the last imposter had been. My assailant hadn’t exactly been a powerful demon either, or he would have done more than shriek and run when he realized what he’d actually bagged. I hadn’t sensed the usual elation at the capture of prey, either. This demon had seemed unmotivated, filled with ennui, as if he were bored with the whole thing and just wanted to get it over with. What demon doesn’t enjoy bagging a human and beating the shit out of them? What a crappy Krampus.
