A Snake in the Grass

by K. A. Stewart

  Axel shrugged, looking at his hands as they were clasped in his lap. He’d spent a lot of the night like that, eyes downturned, lacking all of the bravado and charm I was used to from him. “Maybe…maybe they think that if they do their jobs well enough that they’ll be allowed into heaven someday.” He didn’t even choke on the word. I was a bit proud of him.

  “Demons want to go to heaven? Even the angels that fell?”

  His chuckle was bitter. “You will never find so devout a creature as a fallen angel, Jesse. They’re the ones who know what they’re missing.”

  The other group, what I mentally tagged as the rebels, didn’t give two figs about the rules, or about what duty they may have been assigned, once upon a time. They were tired of being stuck in Hell and they didn’t see why they couldn’t just come up and take the world for their own. They viewed themselves as superior to the human race, short-lived, weak things that we were. We were a fuel source to them, nothing more.

  “But, if there are angels, why are they not fighting the demons?” Estéban had given up remaining silent hours ago, but at least he hadn’t said his name. Even as cooperative as the demon was being, I knew Axel was mentally cataloging everything he could, and if I could keep their names from him, it would be a start.

  I raised my hand before Axel could respond. “I actually know the answer to this one. I talked to one, once.” That got all their attention. “He said that it was not their war, that Hell would have to take care of their own.”

  “That’s it?” Estéban blinked at me in disbelief.

  I shook my head. “I asked him why God hadn’t sent help, because there were humans down here dying over this mess. He just said ‘what makes you think He didn’t?’”

  Axel snorted softly. “Not surprising. It’s always someone else’s problem, where most of them are concerned.”

  “So what happens next? Now that the queen bitch is loose?”

  Axel sighed, and I realized that he looked weary. I didn’t even know he could. “I honestly don’t know. I was arrogant enough to think I had a few years at least before I would have to deal with her. Now… Well, I know a few strikes she’ll make first, to weaken me and to strengthen herself.” He chuckled, suddenly. “Do you know how odd is it so think of her as ‘her’? It’s not like we actually have gender, not like your kind.”

  I couldn’t help it, I had to smirk a little. “You telling me that’s not how little demons come into being? When a mommy demon and a daddy demon like each other very much…”

  “Ew.” He actually kicked my shin, half-heartedly. “You say such disgusting things sometimes. Why do I talk to you?”

  “Because I’m just so damned awesome.” I stretched my arms and laced my fingers behind my head with a smug grin.

  We parted ways soon after that, the human factor needing to make up on their sleep, and the demon participant needing to…well, go be demon-y.

  I lay in bed that night, my very pregnant wife curled up against my chest, and I dreamed of the tunnel and the figure at the far end of the arena. This time, every time he was there, I felt an immense sense of relief. The times the hard packed field remained empty, dread seeped into my very core, and Mira finally woke me to tell me I was mumbling in my sleep. That was new.

  Axel showed himself more often after that. Sometimes, it was just to walk past the window of It as I worked, catching my eye to let me know that he was in the area. Sometimes, he showed up just to play a game of chess with me in the back yard. My two shadows would always be nearby, keeping an eye on the demon, but we’d agreed to let him come and go as he pleased for now. If Reina made an appearance, Axel was the only one likely to be strong enough to put her in her place.

  In the meantime, the world was going to shit. Just watching the news told me that much. It had been going on for a couple years now, but with Reina on the loose, things got worse. There were earthquakes where there’d never been any before. Typhoons and hurricanes. There were random shootings in pretty much every city you could name, even riots on a few occasions. Dictatorships were under siege in unstable countries, and to hear the talking heads tell it, everybody’s finger was on the button. I hated to say it, but I kinda knew how they felt.

  I was a tiny little country in the big demon world, but I’d gotten my hands on a nuke, and I was fully capable of using it. They wouldn’t come for me, because they couldn’t be sure I wouldn’t do it, and I couldn’t actually use it without ending two hundred and seventy-five people who had absolutely no idea what was going on with their souls. We were at the ultimate stalemate.

  I got way less flak from Ivan than I’d expected. I could tell, when we talked on the phone, that he wasn’t happy with my decision to replace Terrence with a half-trained kid, but in keeping with Ivan’s plan to have me as his replacement, he didn’t contradict me.

  “You are to be having good judgement, Dawson. I must be believing this is a good thing.” Ivan sounded tired, more often than not, lately. It was starting to worry me. I’d never heard him be anything but larger than life, as equally passionate in his laughter as he was in his anger. Now, he sounded…old.

  Carlotta and Terrence kept in regular touch, but even I could tell that they weren’t getting anywhere. What we needed was some kind of vessel to house the souls. They could go to a demon, which wasn’t going to happen, or a human – and I wouldn’t have done that to my worst enemy – which left us right where we were, sitting on our hands doing nothing. It was slowly driving me nuts.

  I channeled that energy as best I could into work, and into training Estéban. Even Sveta got in on the action, showing off her own unique fighting style and settling in as part of a team rather than a lone wolf type. Somewhere along the way, she and Estéban had reached some accord about him thumping her in the head, but he still tended to flinch a little when one of her strikes would come his way during sparring. She’d just grin slyly, and I knew one day she wasn’t going to pull her punch, and it’d be on him if he couldn’t block it.

  We’d been home for nearly a month when I got an unexpected visitor. I was in the yard, tending to my bonsai trees (the poor things had been sorely neglected), when the souls on my back gave a warning ripple that usually heralded Axel’s arrival. But, when I looked up, there was no sign of the punk-haired demon.

  The birds had gone silent, however, and inside the house, I heard my daughter’s Mastiff start raising all kinds of hell. Chunk could sense it, too. “Hello…?” My mind raced, weighing the idea of using a garden rake as a weapon versus the odds that I could actually move fast enough to reach the house and my sword.

  Just when I was about to bolt for the door, the leaves rustled in the tree above me, and a little moon-eyed face poked out. “Hello, James Dawson!” The scrappy little demon gave me a fanged grin, hairy ears quivering with excitement.

  “Well, hey there. Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again.” I leaned on the rake, craning my neck to look up at it. “You coming to spy on me for your master?”

  The thing sneered. “Forgets about me. Bigger game now, doesn’t need me. And I have two names! Better than worm, so I left.”

  “Oh! Well…good for you.” I know it was a bad idea to engage, but the little guy amused me, okay? “What are you doing here?”

  “Come to see about more names! Things to trade, secrets to know.” It nodded its head hard enough that it almost overbalanced and pitched off the branch. Only its vicious looking claws saved it.

  “I don’t really think I need to trade for anything today, but…thanks for thinking of me?” What do you say to that?

  The demon’s ears wilted, and he sighed. “Even James Dawson does not need me.”

  Cripes, it just looked so dejected. “Well, no, I just don’t need you right now. I might need you later. Maybe.”

  “Say true?” It perked up a little, eyes round with hope. It’d be almost cute if it wasn’t so into eating faces.

  “Well, sure, maybe.” I had an idea. A no good, very bad, possibly dan
gerous idea. “How would you like to just work for me?”

  The demon gave me a suspicious look. “Doing whats?”

  “Just what you always do. Sneak around, be forgotten, see what you can hear that others miss. Just…let me know what the other demons are talking about.”

  The thing wrinkled up its nose as it tried to parse that. “And James Dawson would pay? With names or other niceness?”

  “We’ll figure it out on a case by case basis. I wouldn’t want you to short change yourself if you got something truly big in the future, right? Big secrets get bigger niceness.” God, I couldn’t believe what was coming out of my mouth. “But we’ll start with a retainer. Do you know what a retainer is?”

  It shook its head. “No. Whats?”

  “It’s like a very small payment, in advance. Just so that you know you work for me.”

  “And no secrets? Just…niceness?”

  “Yup. Just so we both know I’m your boss.”

  The thing slid down the tree trunk to a lower branch, crouching just above my head. “What gives?”

  “I’ll give you a name. I’ll give you a name that can be yours, for your very own. And it’s a name you don’t have to answer to. I can say it, and if you don’t want to come, you’re not forced to. You can make your own decisions.”

  The huge eyes blinked at me once, twice, three times. “A name…for me? A choice for me?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  The demon settled on the tree branch, kicking its clawed feet in the air as it pondered that. Finally, it nodded. “James Dawson will give me a name. On retainer.”

  I bit back a chuckle, and did my best to nod solemnly. “All right then. I think you’ll be…Henry. You like that?”

  The thing’s face split into a wide, toothy grin. “Yes! I am Henry, for James Dawson. We have a deal.”

  “All right, Henry, go on now. I’ll see you soon, okay? After you’ve had a chance to listen and learn more secrets.”

  It didn’t even wave at me, it just poofed into a cloud of black mist that dissipated on the breeze.

  This may or may not work, but maybe now I could get some info that wasn’t filtered through Axel. Maybe now, I could start to plan my own moves.

  Also from K.A. Stewart:

  Peacemaker

  An Arcane West Novel

  Available now from InterMix!

  The bead of sweat rolled down Caleb’s nose to hang there, quivering, before it fell to join its brothers in the fabric of his denim shirt. It was a testament to the length of his journey that he hadn’t even bothered to mop his face in the last hour. Beneath the low brim of his hat, he squinted toward the horizon, his gaze following the seemingly endless chain of telegraph poles as they disappeared against the haze of the distant mountains .

  “Are we lost?”

  Caleb sighed, leaning on the pommel of his saddle. “They said follow the telegraph wires. So we are.”

  “This isn’t a road, you know. This is barely a path. Maybe the poles are a mirage, leading us to our doom.”

  Caleb turned to look at his companion, pillowed on Caleb’s own coat on the rear of the transport. “We’re optimistic today, aren’t we?”

  The odd creature sniffed, its quivering nose a clear expression of irritation. “You try riding back here while this thing goes to pieces. See how optimistic you are.” The rabbit-like animal gave a toss of its head, nearly gouging the man with its spiny antlers.

  “Hey, watch where you swing those things.” The jackalope just rolled its deep brown eyes and sulked. “And it’s not really a comfortable ride up here either.”

  Somewhere in the last fifty miles, the

  transport had developed some kind of hitch in its hindquarters, resulting in a nasty grinding noise and lurching stride. Caleb wasn’t an arcanosmith, but if he had to guess, he’d say the bearings had frozen up. No surprise, with the constant dust and heat they’d been suffering for the last two months.

  “Hopefully, they’ll have a smith at the next stop, and we’ll get it repaired.” If the next town didn’t have an arcanosmith, they’d be stuck for at least a month until one could be sent on the stage from Kansas City. That was going to put Caleb seriously behind on his circuit.

  The jackalope grumbled under its breath as Caleb kicked the transport back into a trot. The normal wheeze and sigh of the mechanical construct was marred ruined by the grinding in the back end, and every other step was enough to painfully jar his teeth together. If they couldn’t get it fixed, he was going to shoot it himself.

  They’d ridden for another twenty minutes before the furry passenger remarked casually, “I think I see a crack in the casing.”

  “What?!” Caleb nearly knocked the jackalope off its perch, turning in the saddle to examine the glowing blue casing at the transport’s flank.

  The animal scrabbled frantically with its claws to remain aboard. “Damn, Caleb!”

  The casing was pristine, not a single flaw marring the transparent surface. Beneath it, the blue arcane energy whirled serenely with no sign of having found an escape route. Caleb’s heart pounded in his ears as he fought to calm himself. “That wasn’t funny, Ernst!”

  “Well, it was before you tried to knock me off the transport.” Ernst smoothed his brown fur,

  twitching his long ears to express his displeasure.

  “You do that again, and I’ll skin you for a hat.”

  “You have no sense of humor, you know that?”

  “So I’ve been told.” The man turned to face forward again. The dusty track stretched out before them, barely visible in the tall prairie grass. Only the never-ending line of telegraph poles marked where the road might be. “It can’t be much farther. We ride any more west, we’ll wind up in Indian territory.” The Rocky Mountain range had been claimed as the land of final retreat by many tribes in recent years, leaving a nearly impassable wall across the budding U.S. frontier. Only the desperate and the foolhardy ventured close to that wilderness these days. Which one are you, Caleb?

  “You know, it’s possible that they gave you bad directions.” Ernst settled himself in his little coat nest again. “They didn’t seem to warm up to you.”

  Caleb didn’t respond, only kicking the transport into motion yet again. The last town had seemed rather cold, welcome-wise. As had the one before it. If this was how the entire circuit was going to be . . . He was sorely tempted to turn and ride back east, if it wouldn’t mean career suicide. What little career I have left.

  His “career” currently consisted of a lonely, miserable circuit in the wilds of the frontier. Over the course of the next year, he’d range from the southern-most reach of the U.S., skirting the still-contested Texas-Mexico border, all the way to the north and Canada. He would mark a trail straight down the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, the very edges of what was considered the borderlands, and cover

  everything between there and Kansas City. Such was the life of an itinerate lawman.

  The mountains to the west never seemed to get any closer no matter how long they rode. The behemoths merely sat there, watching over the grassland from a bank of purple mist. Small clouds played ring-the-rosie around the peaks, teasing with a promise of rain that never came. The lack of moisture showed in the prairie grass, which had long ago gone brown and brittle in the summer heat.

  Caleb finally broke down and wiped at his face and neck with a bandana, fanning himself with the wide brim of his hat. It brought middling relief at best.

  “Can’t you just put the heat elsewhere? I’m turning into stew back here.”

  The man eyed the dry prairie and shuddered. Yes, he could have taken the heat around them, shifted it elsewhere. But anywhere he put it would spark a fire, and in a dry environment like this… “Better stew than turned to charcoal.”

  “Says you. You’re not wearing fur.” The antlers jabbed Caleb in the back again, and he grimaced.

  “Enough! I’ve got four days of stubble on my face, five gallons of sweat in my
shirt and not an ounce of water in my body, and my ass feels like someone’s been at it with a carpet rod. If you don’t like fur, shift form. Not another word out of you until we hit town.” Immediately, Caleb felt bad for snapping, and his shoulders sagged. They were both hot and increasingly miserable, but that was no reason to bite the poor creature’s head off. “Sorry, Ernst.”

  The jackalope gave a peculiar little purr,

  indicating that there were no hard feelings. “Wake me when we get there.”

  About an hour later, “there” appeared suddenly out of the tall grass like a jack-in-the-box. It was a decent- sized town, bigger than the last two they’d visited, and Caleb stopped the transport long enough to evict Ernst and inspect the transport one last time.

  Built to resemble the horses they had replaced, they had four metal legs that moved with arcane-powered gears and pistons. Though some inventors back east were experimenting with arcane powered wagons, on four wheels, the transport design made them better at irregular terrain and simply had more power. Transports were capable of great speed and, strength, and only rarely had to be recharged with arcane energy, as opposed to a horse, which had a limited range it could travel in a day, and had to be fed and watered often.

  This particular model had been one of the newest available when he’d left St. Louis, a gift from his director. A banishment present. It was fast, to be sure, but it had been designed for paved city streets and short country strolls. The extreme conditions of the west were taking their toll on it, and quickly. The ball joints in the knees were still moving freely, but the gears in the rear workings were grinding audibly, and it was only a matter of time before it wheezed its last. Caleb simply didn’t have the knowledge to repair it himself, and once it quit, they’d be on foot. In this heat, it’d be a death sentence.

  Mindful of protocol, Caleb shrugged into his heavy duster and adjusted the star badge pinned over his heart with a sigh. Wonder if they wouldn’t be

  happier to see me without it.