by Devon Monk
I opened the door and let Spud out to do his late night business. I wondered if I’d eaten dinner, remembered it had been pie, and decided I was too tired to eat something more nutritious.
Spud scratched on the door, and I let him back in. He and dragon pig sprinted to the fireplace, burrowing into the huge pile of toys, until the dragon pig came out perched on top of the mountain, with Spud and the toys spread out below. Spud licked his paws a couple times, then his eyes closed and he was snoring.
The dragon pig watched me as I headed toward the stairs to my room. “You’re good,” I said. The dragon pig grunted. “Yes, I’m good, too. See you in the morning.”
I didn’t even have the energy for a shower, so I stripped, pulled on one of Ryder’s T-shirts, and crawled under the covers. I checked my phone one more time for a message from him, but the only text was from Jean telling me Hogan had taken a sniff around the motel and hadn’t smelled ghoul.
I sent her a thumb’s up emoji, dropped the phone on the night stand, then stole Ryder’s pillow. It still smelled of his shampoo. I hugged it to me, inhaling his scent, then fell asleep.
The door opened quietly, so I knew that wasn’t what woke me. It might have been the very soft grumble from the dragon pig, more of a greeting than a warning. Or maybe it was just that I knew those footsteps, the tread of those boots, the thunk of keys landing next to mine on the little shelf in the hall.
Maybe it was because my heart was tied to that man. When he was near, I could feel him, the shape of him, from his breath, his steps, his movements through our house. His palm on the back of the chair he always touched when looking in the living room at the dragon pig and Spud. The drag of his fingers along the wall as he climbed the stairs.
I breathed in, breathed out, everything settling in me.
Knowing he was here. Safe. Mine.
I waited with my eyes closed as he bumped into the dresser, then shucked out of his boots, his pants, his shirt.
He grunted softly as he stretched his shoulders and back. Then the covers lifted and a soft sound of laughter came out of him.
I didn’t open my eyes, and didn’t let go of the pillow I had totally stolen, wondering what he was going to do about it.
He lowered himself into bed, and pulled the covers over both of us. I felt his fingers grip the pillow. I held on as he tugged. Just when I thought he was going to give up, his grip already slacking, I loosened my arms and rolled over.
He shuffled the pillow into place under his head, then pressed up behind me, his arm wrapping warm and heavy over my waist. He smelled of the diner: apple pie, bacon, and butter. He smelled like a strange perfume, and I knew it must be Vivian’s. Knew she had touched him, hugged him, or hell, knowing her, sprayed him with it. It was weird to smell someone else on him.
I wanted to ask him how it had gone with the monster hunter, but three breaths later, I felt his whole body relax, his arm go heavy, and I knew he was asleep. Answers would just have to wait until morning.
He was out of bed before me. It was barely light outside, the birds still running through their warm-up songs for the day. I smelled coffee, heard Spud’s leash jangle, then the door opened and shut. Only a few seconds later, I heard the door open and close again.
Ryder must have forgotten something.
I pulled the pillow over my head, wondering if I could catch fifteen more minutes of sleep, but my mind was already chugging.
We needed to find the thief demon who had broken into the god realms. We needed to find the ghoul wandering through town and find out what part it had played in all this. We needed to get rid of the monster hunter before half of Ordinary got up on stage to show off their talents, some of which would undoubtedly be magically enhanced.
There would be no more sleep for me this morning. Darn it.
I shoved the pillow off my head, opened my eyes, and screamed.
There was a pink unicorn nose stuck in my face.
“Your man be cheatin’.” Xtelle’s breath stank of burned strawberries. “I saw him. Out all night with some floozy while you were working.”
I shoved at her face. “How did you get in my bedroom?”
“Through the front door. How else do you think I’d get in your room?”
“You’re a demon,” I said. “Maybe you have demon ways.”
“Oh, that’s what you think I’d break Ordinary’s stupid rules for? To smell your morning breath, which is hideous in case you wondered. I have followed all of your rules.”
“Says the demon standing in my room in the shape of a pink unicorn.”
“Well excuse me for expressing myself. I’m so sorry I can’t be as plain and boring as the rest of you.”
I pushed off the covers and sat.
There was a small, very muscular black bull with very long, sharp horns in front of my dresser.
“Avnas,” I said to the newest demon in town.
He had been the king of hell’s right hand man, his councilor. He’d given all that up to come here. Even though it had been a rocky start, he’d signed the contract and agreed to follow Ordinary’s laws because he was in love with the queen of hell. Well, now the ex-queen. Xtelle.
And while I’d never quite understand why he had also taken the shape of a compact farm animal, he had been one of the people telling me there was a war coming.
The war he thought involved the King of the Underworld.
“Delaney,” Avnas said, inclining his head a bit. “Your man was, indeed, out at all hours of the night with another woman.”
“I know.” I stood, and walked past them both to the door. “How do you know?”
“We followed them.”
I groaned and pressed my palm over my eyes. “Why would you do that?”
“Your heart is broken,” Xtelle said, with a little too much glee. “I can see it. I know human hearts inside and out.”
“After devouring so many of them you are, of course, an expert, my Queen,” Avnas said.
“My heart is not broken. Out.”
Xtelle narrowed her sparkling eyes. “Did you just order me? The queen?”
“You are trespassing in my home. Go away.”
“Oh,” Xtelle said dragging the word on and on. “He’s bugged the house, hasn’t he? I see.”
“No,” I said. “There’s nothing to see. Go away.”
“You can’t say anything because he might overhear you.”
“He hasn’t bugged the house.”
“Just stare at me stupidly if what I’m saying is true.”
I scowled at her.
“Yes. That’s the face. Your man is stepping out on you, but before we murder the woman right in the eye, we’ll need to discover her weaknesses.”
“Xtelle.” I stabbed a finger toward the open door. “Out. Leave Ryder alone.”
“I will leave him alone right in the gut,” she said, winking so much, it looked like she’d lost a contact.
“No doing anything to his gut. Leave Ryder and Vivian alone.”
“Vivian. The little hussy.”
I stared at the ceiling, but there wasn’t a god up there who was going to help me with an annoying demon unicorn. “Vivian isn’t a hussy. She’s a monster hunter. You need to stay away from her, and stay in pony form. No more pink unicorn while she’s in town.”
Xtelle lifted her nose again, staring down it at me. “Vivian Dunn is a monster hunter?”
“You know her last name?”
Xtelle shrugged, which looked a little weird on a unicorn. “She’s mortal. It’s easy for my kind to know names. Ryder is cheating on you with a monster hunter?”
“Ryder is not cheating on me.”
She tsked, and Avnas shook his big bull head, horns almost knocking a brush, some socks, and a glass of water off my dresser.
“You are in denial,” Xtelle said. “That’s very common. Don’t be ashamed of yourself.”
“I’m not in denial.”
“Which is what someone in denial would
say.”
“I am not ashamed of myself. Ryder isn’t cheating.”
“How would you know? Are you spying on him?”
“Of course I’m not spying on him!”
“Good. Because I am.”
Avnas cleared his throat.
“Fine. We are,” Xtelle corrected.
“No.”
“We’ll keep a low profile. You have to admit it is a genius idea. Who would expect a unicorn—”
“You’re a demon, not a unicorn, and you can’t be a unicorn while she’s in town.”
“—a beautiful unicorn—”
“Pony.”
She sighed loudly. “Fine. A beautiful pony. Who would expect a magnificent pony and muscular black bull to be spies? It’s the perfect disguise within a disguise within a disguise.” She frowned and muttered, counting backward. “Within a disguise.”
“No spying. Do not follow Ryder. Do not follow Vivian. Do not spy. At all.”
“Oh, thank the Grim! We’re moving on to revenge already. Would you like to hire a hitman? I know several good hitmen.”
Avnas rolled his hoof and somehow made it sound like he was cracking his knuckles.
“No hitmen, or hitdemons, or hitbulls. No revenge. Give me your word, Xtelle,” I said. “You will not spy on Ryder or Vivian, together or apart, and you will not touch, harm, speak, or engage with either of them.”
She blinked a couple times. “You are getting better at defining a promise,” she said grudgingly.
“Thank you. No deflection. Promise.”
“I give you my promise.”
“You too, Avnas.”
“You have my word.”
“Good. Now, do you also know there’s a ghoul in town?”
They both straightened, then looked at each other, then looked back at me. Yeah, that wasn’t suspicious. Crow said a royal demon was involved. Xtelle was the ex-queen. Avnas the king’s brother.
“How would you know there’s a ghoul in town?” Xtelle asked.
“Hogan can tell.”
“Really. The half Jinn. That’s unexpected. Ghouls and Jinn aren’t often found in each other’s company.”
“What else do you know about ghouls?”
“I know they’re very nice people who don’t get all judgey about demons hiring hitmen.”
“Do you know any ghouls personally?”
“Of course,” she said. “They are…friends?” she threw a look at Avnas who tipped his horns, considering that.
“Neighbors,” he provided.
“Yes. A better term. Ghouls are neighbors to demonkind. We wave across the rivers of blood, share our torture recipes, but it’s not like we go to every beheading and flay-cation together.”
“Can you find the ghoul?”
They both shook their heads.
“I thought you were neighborly: beheadings, blood rivers, whatever a flay-cation is.”
“Just because we’re demons doesn’t mean we know every ghoul,” Xtelle griped. “Ghouls can hide from anyone, including demons. Since we haven’t seen it, I can only assume it doesn’t want to be found. You won’t find it until it is ready to show itself.”
“All right. So talk to me about god spells.”
Silence stretched out for a full minute. It felt a little like a game of chicken, and I waited it out.
Xtelle was the first to break. “God spells are rare, to say the least.”
“They are.”
“There’s a book. You must know about it. A book of god spells?”
“I know about it.”
“A demon once had possession of it.”
“When?”
“Many ages ago.”
“And now?”
“As far as I know…” She looked at Anvas. He nodded. “As far as I know, the book is not in a demon’s hands now. But it has been lost and found and lost and found many times.”
“What about a page torn out of the book?”
Silence again. This time it was Avans who spoke. “I’ve seen it. The page that was torn out of the book of god spells.”
“You have?” Xtelle sounded surprised.
He nodded. “I had been sent on a quest by the king to find it. I was not the only one looking for the lost page.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
“I do not know. Not now. There was a creature, a Strange who had possession of it. I glimpsed it only briefly before the Strange nearly killed me and disappeared in a flash of dragonfly wings.
“It was said a demon by the name of Glorex the Greedy found it once. But Glorex is dead. The king put a bounty on the page. If any demon finds it, they are to bargain, kill, destroy for it. They are to give it to him.”
Chills rolled down my spine. It was too damn early in the morning to suddenly realize the King of the Underworld might have access to every god’s realm just because my almost-uncle Crow decided to doodle in the margins of the universe.
“Have they?” I asked. “Has a demon handed that page over to the King?”
“Not that I am aware,” he said. But there was something about the way he said it. As if he had more information and didn’t want to share it.
“There’s more,” I said.
He shook his head, bull nostrils flaring. “There is rumor. There is always rumor. What I’ve told you is all I know. All the facts I know.”
“Did either of you use it to break into the gods’ realms?” I asked.
“You’re accusing us?” Xtelle demanded. “Us?”
“We are very powerful, my Queen,” Avnas said.
“So powerful we are the first suspects in the crime of the ages,” she agreed. “How dare you, Delaney Reed.”
I just planted my hands on my hips, and got ready to wait out her tirade.
“How dare you be so…so sweet.”
It was my turn to be shocked into silence. Finally, I managed: “Sweet?”
“We’re suspects, Avnas. God thieves.” She fluttered her eyelashes, and Avnas puffed up his chest.
“As well we should be,” he agreed. “You do fine work, Delaney Reed.”
“For a human,” Xtelle said.
“For a human,” he repeated.
“But you know we have been in Ordinary for months,” Xtelle said. “With all the alarms you have on this place, you would know if we left.”
That was true.
“Are you saying you didn’t do it?” I asked.
Xtelle shook out her mane. “Yes. Unfortunately, we did not commit this crime. Vacationing here has obviously made us soft.”
“You are as rugged as granite, my Queen,” Avnas said. “As unforgiving as an inferno.”
“You flatter me.” She cocked her hips and swished her tail. “Don’t stop.”
“You know what?” I said. “I haven’t had breakfast yet. Get out of my house.”
“But you think someone used the god spells to break into the gods’ realms and steal the gods’ weapons.”
“It’s a theory.”
“How does my stolen ring fit into your theory?”
“We’re working on it.”
“We could gather information for you,” Avnas said. “Ask around about the whereabouts of the page of spells.”
“Why would we do that?” Xtelle asked.
Avnas was still looking at me, so I pointed at Xtelle. “What she said.”
He shifted his broad shoulders and turned in the limited space to face her. It was good he had decided to take on the form of a very small, very compact bull, otherwise he wouldn’t fit in here at all.
“It would be a way to pass the time. A lark. A balm against the boredom of this dull little meaningless plot of humanity. No offense,” he threw my way.
“None taken.” Because this wasn’t a bad idea. Gathering information from demons would keep Xtelle out of my hair. It might even keep her out of trouble. Maybe. Possibly. Hopefully for at least a few hours.
“You still need to follow the laws of Ordinary,” I reminded them.
“No beheading someone to use their spinal column for a demon-y fiber optics network.”
“You have no idea how demon spells work,” Xtelle scoffed. “It takes a least a dozen spinal columns for even a bar of connection, and that’s bound to short out from all the goodie-good built into this place. We’d have to go miles outside town to pick up any kind of a signal at all.”
I was suddenly glad that I knew nothing about demon spells.
“If,” I said, “you can find any information on who might be in possession of the spell page, or where it was last seen, I would be very grateful.”
“And you would owe us,” Xtelle pressed. “A favor for a favor.”
I knew that was the way demons worked. Everything in a demon’s life was transactional. But that wasn’t how things worked here.
“Information is usually a free exchange,” I said. “But if you can get me a solid lead on who has the page of spells, or if you can tell me where the page of spells can be found, I will offer you a finder’s fee.”
“A bounty,” she breathed. “Treasure? Rare items? Jewels?”
“A coupon for the Blue Owl.”
“A coupon?”
I kept my face blank. “Two dinners for the price of one. No free dessert.”
“A two-for?”
“But since you’re a pony, you can’t actually eat there. Maybe if you ask nicely, Jean will bring you takeout.”
“That’s not actually incentive, Delaney.”
“Well, if the information is good enough, I might consider an upgrade. Free sugar cubes and carrots for a month.”
She narrowed her eyes and flicked her tail. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Me?”
“You’re enjoying having the upper hand over me.”
That was not true at all. “I’m joking with you, Xtelle. Poking fun. It’s something humans do. And while I know demons don’t actually have a sense of humor…”
She made a growly sound that did not fit a pony at all.
“…I don’t want an upper hand over anyone. We’re all citizens. We’re all doing our jobs. I’m doing mine, too, trying to keep us all safe. If you have any info that would help, I’ll do what I can to see you get some kind of reward.”
“Why should I trust you to do that?”
“Because it’s part of living in and building a community. We do our best to live up to the jobs we’re responsible for. I don’t have any say over the funds in town. I will see if there is some kind of reward if you can help us keep everyone in town safe.
