“The thing is, they’re not getting anything out of it. The demons, I mean.” Estéban flailed a hand at me, and I slapped a crescent wrench into it, whether that was what he needed or not. “You said they’re not fighting for souls, they’re fighting for their freedom, which they really already have. So why would a creature like that voluntarily show up to get its ass kicked if they’re not being paid? Something doesn’t add up.”
Terrence grunted in reply, and I handed him a rag to wipe his greasy hands. “Think that might do it, boy. Let’s try to start her up.”
With a pensive look on his face, the kid hit the ignition, and was rewarded with the instantaneous sound of the engine roaring to life. Well, buzzing to life. The bike wasn’t really big enough to roar. Estéban looked up at the both of us, grinning like his face would split. “We did it.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “Good job, kid.”
They tinkered with the thing some more, testing out the throttle, tweaking things I didn’t really understand. Everything was apparently to the old man’s satisfaction, because they finally powered it down and he gave a satisfied nod. “If you take good care of her, she’ll run forever. Just gotta keep up on the maintenance.”
“I will. I’ll take good care of her.” Estéban reverently ran his hands over the bike’s seat. “Miguel would be happy that we got her running.”
Terrence snorted, eyeing the mechanical carnage they’d left strewn all over the driveway. “You boys better get to picking this up. I’m going to head down into town, make a few phone calls.” Oh sure, we had to pick up the mess. The kid and I rolled our eyes at each other, but started gathering up the tools and spare parts while Terrence took over my bucket throne, leaning on the cane that he had miraculously not needed until just this moment. “And as far as your demon fighting puzzle, I think you’ve reached the point where there’s only one solution, and it may be worse than not knowing.”
“Oh?”
“The only way to find out what deal that boy has made with them is to ask him. Only we can’t find him, can we?” I waited patiently, hoping the old codger had a point. “So you’re left with asking the one other thing that knows the answer.”
Esteban and I both paused in our cleaning to look back at Terrence with raised brows. He just gave us a challenging look. “Are you really suggesting that we summon up a demon and have a chat?”
“I didn’t say any such thing. Just saying that it’s the only alternative you’ve been left with.”
I knew the answer to this already. “Not only no, but hell-the-fuck no.” I’d summoned one demon, ever, and I still felt pretty slimy about it. Whatever we needed to know, it wasn’t worth it.
The kid, however, had a thoughtful frown on his face. “We could. We know its name.” At that simple suggestion, the demon name in question swam to the forefront of my mind. The souls in my skin twitched, and I grimaced. The look on Estéban’s face said that it was doing the same to him. They wanted to be spoken, the names. Nearly living creatures in and of themselves, they wanted to be set free into open air, tainting anything that was close enough to hear it. Every single demon name I’d ever heard still lingered inside my head, like an abscess just waiting to pop. I swallowed hard, and tried not to taste the bile at the back of my throat.
“That’s a dangerous road to start down, kid. It’s not really something you can take back once it’s done.” Another name swam dangerously close to the surface, one that belonged to a creature I’d nicknamed The Yeti. That one I could still taste on my tongue, where it had passed into the world not quite a year ago. It would be easier to say it the second time. I knew that instinctively. My right shoulder flared white hot for a second, startling me into a wince, and the names retreated, bullied back by the pure life force I was carting around.
“Do we have a choice?” The question wasn’t rhetorical, he truly wanted an answer.
“There’s always a choice. It just may not be a good one.” When demons were involved, the choice was never a good one. I’d learned that.
Terrence heaved himself off his seat, hobbling his way toward the kitchen with what I was pretty sure was grossly exaggerated stiffness. “Well, you two ladies figure it out. I’m taking the truck, I’ll be back after while.”
Estéban sighed and bent to finish gathering up the tools, rolling them carefully up inside their worn leather case. “Mamá would murder us anyway, if we did it.”
“We couldn’t do it here,” I conceded. “Not inside the wards. That’s just…beyond wrong.” I frowned, hearing the words come out of my mouth, and quickly corrected myself. “Not that we would actually do it. Just sayin’.”
“Right. It’d have to be somewhere else. Away from people. Wouldn’t want to put them in danger.” I picked up one of the tool boxes, and he took the leather bundle, and we went to put them away. “Need to be a shadowed place too. They don’t like sun, but I don’t think we want to tackle this at night.” I gave him a raised brow, and he shrugged. “Hypothetically.”
“We couldn’t hold it, you know. Circles don’t really trap them. We’d have to give it a reason to stay and talk. Give it something in exchange for any information we get. It won’t deal for free.”
“Hypothetically.”
“Right.”
“It wouldn’t have to be a soul we offered it. If we could figure out something else that had value for it.” Souls were not the only thing demons would bargain for. I knew that. They’d take a smaller deal first if they thought it would get their mark hooked. The first one is free, the second one always costs. “A favor would be too much, but…a name, maybe. A single name, not a whole name.”
Names and voices were odd things for a demon. I’d been told once that all humans, all of us apes crawling on the planet’s surface, looked alike to them. It was our voices that told us apart, our names spoken in those voices that let them identify just who was who. Axel knew my name, and he borrowed my voice with impunity. Every demon I’d ever fought knew my name. That was part of the deal.
The demon from the fight club had seen me, and my souls, and he’d heard my voice, but he didn’t know my name. It might be enough to trade.
I realized that I’d fallen into grim silence, and the kid was staring at me with a similar look on his face. “We’re going to do this, aren’t we?”
It went against everything Ivan had ever taught me. And sometimes, you just have to draw a line. “ No. No, we’re not.”
“But Jesse–”
“I said no.” That was as firm a voice as I had. “Drop it. Go check on Sveta, see if she’s done terrorizing your cousins.” We’d left the kid-pack in charge of Sveta’s convalescence, figuring sheer irritation would get her back on her feet sooner than later. “Go check on your mom, see if she’s ready to try a little more food. There’s lunch leftovers warming on the stove. I’m gonna go walk the perimeter.”
Was that smooth? Yeah, that was smooth. ‘Cause every one of you knows what I’d decided to do.
Sure, I walked the perimeter. I walked along the mystical boundary, feeling the uneven edges where one caster had gone out to one distance, one to another. It allowed the barrier to trail off gently, rather than end in an abrupt, impenetrable wall. Parts of it felt distinctly like Carlotta, but the others were older, ghosts of people long gone.
With frequent glances over my shoulder, I made sure I was as far from the main house as possible when I slipped over the border – a little part of me expected to get shocked like one of those dogs and their invisible fencing – and headed out into the trees and mountain wilds.
It was beautiful out there, the late afternoon sun shining down through the leaves, casting fluttery shadows on the ground beneath my feet. Unseen birds chorused cheerfully overhead, seemingly unconcerned about my presence. Better vacate, Tweetie, you’re not gonna like what comes next.
I walked for probably fifteen minutes – far enough that I was fairly certain I could still find my way back, and yet leave the Perez family a
t a safe distance – and finally found a small clearing that would suit my purposes. An ancient tree had fallen, probably decades ago, but there was still a gap in the canopy where the sun beamed in unhindered. Exactly what I needed. They hated the sun.
Planting myself in the center of the sun-drenched clearing, I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. Listen up, you lot in there. I’m gonna do something you’re really gonna hate, but I need you to just go with me on this one, okay? There was no response from my passengers, so I had to just hope they didn’t decide to rip my back apart and leave me helpless with a demon wandering around and night coming on.
I palmed the demon mace canister off my keychain, ready to fog the place with cayenne and cumin at a second’s notice, set both my feet in a good solid stance, took a deep breath, and said it. “_____________________!”
Oh god, that sucks… It wasn’t meant for human anatomy, that word. My tongue shouldn’t have been able to wrap its way around the syllables of poison, bitterness, ground glass, and sulfur stench. But there it was just the same, and I could feel a greasy, unholy joy as the name escaped into the world.
I didn’t puke this time. Yay me? But the world tilted at a radically unnatural angle, and the trees swam around me like water reeds. The sensation of rancid oil coated my throat, my skin, everything that vile, degenerate word could touch. I think the sun even dimmed, a pall falling over the clearing that dropped the temperature by a good ten or fifteen degrees. I didn’t have time to be cold, though, what with the skin of my back burning like fire. I could almost hear the souls hissing their displeasure aloud as they swirled in agitation. I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to make things return to their normal, upright positions before my visitor arrived.
The first thing that settled around me was the silence. The birds had taken my advice and headed for less demon-y pastures. The pleasant breeze had stilled. Hell, maybe the rivers had stopped running and the earth ceased to turn. Hard to say. It was only my second demon summoning.
With no wind to speak of, the scent of sulfur and ozone shouldn’t have been able to reach my nostrils, but there it was all the same, flirting around my head. “Come on out, ugly, I know you’re here.”
The only response I got back was a sibilant giggle, somewhere above my head and to my left. I should have grabbed my sword before I did this. I knew that. Belatedly. Dumbass.
“All right, I’m sorry I called you ugly. What would you prefer? Fluffy? Snookums? Cuddle-pie?” The tree branches rustled, and I tracked the motion off to my right this time. I turned to keep it in front of me. The thing giggled again, sounding like a tank with air escaping. Claws rasped on tree bark, but the thing stayed hidden. “Here kitty, kitty, kitty…”
Finally, the large moon-eyed head peered its way around a tree trunk, a good fifteen feet off the ground. Safely out of my reach, I noticed. The bat-winged ears twitched and swiveled, keeping a wary watch on all that went on around it. The actions of a prey animal, I realized. This little guy had been hunted before.
“I seeeeeee you, soul-bearer.” With a blink, it ducked back into hiding again, though I could still see the tip of one ear sticking out.
“Yeah, I see you too, Bats. Why don’t you come on down here so we can have a chat without me getting a crick in my neck?”
“Tsk tsk tsk…” The thing tutted at me. “No no no…won’t like it, chatting with you. Won’t like it at all…”
I snorted. “I like to think I’m a brilliant conversationalist, actually.”
It hiss-giggled at me again. “Talk talk talk! Always talking, saying nothing. Wispy words, drift like smoke…”
“What can I say, it’s a gift.” I took a few steps to try and get a better look, but the thing circled the trunk, keeping itself half hidden. “Come on down, let’s get to know each other.”
“Down is down, up is better. Up high, safe and free. Like a birdy in the tree!”
Oh god, it was rhyming. This was going to get old, real quick. I’d talked with lots of demons over the years, all with varying degrees of coherence. This one, while coherent, was decidedly off, even for a demon. Sure, it was pretty weak. I wasn’t even sure which of my personal categories it belonged to. But I’d negotiated a detailed contract with a demonic slug with more success than this.
“If I promise not to hurt you, will you come down here?” The head reappeared, the enormous eyes blinking owlishly at me.
“Swear. Swear it by power. Play me false, and poof, all gone!”
“Uh…sure. I swear on my own power that so long as you offer me no harm, I will cause you no harm while you are here speaking with me, on this one and only occasion.” You have to be really specific, with demons. The letter of the law is everything.
The demon obviously didn’t know who I was, if he thought I had any power of my own to bargain with. Still, the oath seemed to satisfy it, and there was a scrabbling of claws on wood as the thing slid down to the forest floor.
It emerged from behind the tree, walking on feet and knuckles like a tiny ape, hunched and wary as it peered around the sunlit clearing. The hairy tip of one ear caught a stray beam of light, and the thing hissed as it drew back under some overhanging brush. “Filthy sun. Why the sun? Why not the cool dark night, sweetly black?”
“Can’t give you all the advantages, right?”
It snickered, hissing through its mouthful of fangs. “What does the soul-bearer want with me, hm? No one, nothing… Plaything, puppet, slovenly worm…”
It was referring to itself, I realized. Ladies and gentlemen, what we had here was the very first demon I’d ever seen with self-esteem issues. “I wanted to talk to you about the fight club. About what you were doing at the warehouse the other night.”
The demon snickered and clapped its bony hands together in glee. “Oh, the fun we have! Playing, yes, playing with the angry ones!”
I crouched down so I could be more on a level with the creature, peering under the bush that sheltered it. “Must hurt, them smacking you around like that.”
The moon-eyes flared red for a heartbeat. “Don’t have to let them! Could eat their faces off, if I want! Only won’t let me… No, no, says no eating faces….” The red faded and the bat-like ears wilted in dejection. “No eating faces.”
“Who won’t let you eat their faces?” Points to me for getting through that question without so much as a flinch. I had no doubts, looking at the size of the maw on this thing, that it could eat faces if it wanted to.
The demon gave me a bit of a smirk. “Wouldn’t you like to know? All puzzled up, is the soul-bearer. Needing what he does not know!”
“Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know.” This was starting to be familiar territory. This would lead into negotiations, trading for info. This I knew. “What’s it going to take to get you to tell me? And don’t pretend like it’s Paulito. You and I both know he doesn’t have the power of a AAA battery.”
That tickled the little demon, and he hissed-giggled all over the place. “No! No power there. Not enough, but just enough… Enough for what wants.” It slunk out from under the leaves, cautiously looking around it. I realized that the shadows were slowly creeping my way as the sun started sinking toward the ocean in the west. “What is the soul-bearer willing to give, hm? A soul? One tasty soul? Won’t miss it, has plenty.”
“Not a chance. Try again.” I’d already decided what I was willing to part with, and while it would be better to force the demon to ask for it, I didn’t think I had the time. I didn’t want to be out here with it once night fell. “How about a name?”
The demon’s ears perked up, the tips quivering. “The soul-bearer’s name?”
“One of them. One of my names, in exchange for you telling me who is giving you orders, and what you’re gaining by letting that bunch of idiots beat you up.”
The thing rocked its head back and forth, the enormous ears flapping. “Hem. Haw.”
I couldn’t help it, I snorted a laugh at that. “I don’t think
you’re actually supposed to say ‘hem’ and ‘haw’.”
The big eyes blinked at me. “Then how does it know I am thinking? Thinking is much taxing. Hard working.”
I couldn’t decide if the little critter was terminally stupid, or just nutty as shit. “So what do you think?”
“I am thinking… I am thinking this is yes. One name, one name of the soul-bearer, and in return I will say who is, and what gets.” The very idea seemed to delight it, and it danced a little caper in its growing pool of shadow. “A soul-bearer name will be worth muchly! No worm then!”
Y’know, against my better judgment, I actually felt kinda sorry for the little thing.
Chapter 16
“All right, tiger. You go first. If you tell me true, I’ll give you the name.”
“Yes yes, always the true, always. No lies, never never. Doesn’t like. Doesn’t like at all.” With its weird crouched walk, it edged out again, still hugging the very boundary between sunlight and shadow. “We play with the angry ones, so doesn’t hurt. Doesn’t rend and tear and slash. Says, no eating faces, no winning. Lose every game, and will be pleased with us.”
“Whoever is bossing you around, they want you to lose on purpose.”
It nodded, ears flopping. “Yes! Small game not important, says. Big game important, and angry ones must stay angry. Anger is stupid. Anger makes mistakes.”
I was inclined to agree with that. “So…the fight club is just to get them used to being around demons. Get them thinking that they’re bigger and badder than you and yours. Make them cocky, make them reckless.”
“Yes yes! Big show, much fangs and claws.” It hissed, demonstrating, then dissolved into giggles again.
“Why?”
“Needs them.” It nodded firmly at that. “Needs the blood, needs the thump thump.”
“Thump thump…” The heartbeat. The life. “Your…master, for want of a better word, is working blood magic. They need the blood and the life force of the kids at the fight club to do…something. So you little ones, you do the grunt work, get your butts kicked, and your boss gets all the benefits.”
A Snake in the Grass Page 18
