by Aaron Crash
“Yeah, why?” he asked.
Bailey shrugged. “Mother energy is powerful. Have you ever had a tattoo? I mean, other than the toy soldier, which we should really thank the Clockwatcher for. No, wait. We fucked him over. No thanking that shit stain.”
“Do you have to curse?” the angel complained.
Bailey thought for a minute. “Yes. Yes, I do.”
“No tattoos,” Jack said. “I grew up pretty clean-cut. Until, you know, the world got its hooks into me.”
“I feel that.” Bailey raised her fist, and he bumped it.
“The world is beautiful,” Gabby insisted. “And life is difficult, but it has a fragile beauty. This moment in the timestream, all of us together, united in a common purpose, it’s glorious. And meeting Heinrich last night was fate. This is all fate.”
The sex demon was not having any of that. “Fuck fate. The world is shit. Human life ends. Happy or sad, it ends.”
They stopped at a McDonald’s for a quick breakfast, which they ate in the parking lot. Gabby had orange juice and carrots from the kids’ menu, since vegans and anything fried in lard just don’t mix. Sure, McDonald’s swore they used vegetable oil, but Gabby wasn’t going to take any chances.
Jack drove over to the gunsmith that Pinetree had mentioned the night before. Chet Lauder was the older brother of some mutual friends.
The Lauder place was open, and Chet was very helpful. He actually found three extra cylinders for the big cap-and-ball revolver. He had the powder, a powder measure, extra patches for wadding, extra lead balls, and percussion caps or the gun wouldn’t fire at all. Chet did suggest using paper cartridges, which is what men used in the Civil War, before modern bullets were perfected.
Jack said he’d keep it in mind, but Bailey shook her head. “Fuck paper cartridges. We’re doing this shit old school. I think we have to, so we don’t fuck up the magic.”
Behind the counter, Chet laughed. “So, I can’t believe little Jackie Masterson is in my shop with the two hottest women I’ve seen in my life.”
“It’s Jack Masterson.” Bailey stared the gunsmith in the eyes. At the moment, her red eye was actually a bright green. Still, she sizzled as she stared into Chet’s soul. “And he fucks us so good, Chet. And don’t worry, a lot of guys like to get pegged. It doesn’t make you gay.”
Gabby blushed. “She doesn’t mean it, Mr. Lauder. I’m so sorry for my friend. I’m fairly certain she has a form of Tourette syndrome.”
Chet laughed a bit too loud. “That makes sense. The girl can cuss. Fine, Jack. Switching subjects. I have a holster for your revolver. I’ve never seen a model like it. It seems similar to an 1858 Remington New Model Army revolver, but it’s also very different. Almost like a bastardized version of the Colt 1851 Navy. It’s old, though, and very rare. Have you thought about selling it?”
“No, it’s not for sale.” Jack was still trying to process what Bailey had said about Chet’s personal life. Not that it was any of his business what Chet did behind closed doors, but Jack just hadn’t seen that coming, and he’d known Chet for a long time.
Jack paid for everything with a credit card that probably should’ve been smoking because it had been used so much.
Back in the Ford Whatever, Jack turned to his ladies. “Where are we going?”
Gabby pointed north. “We should head toward Denver. The more people there are, the more likely we’ll be able to find wrongdoing. That’s where we’ll find demons.
Bailey was thrilled. “We’re going to the big city, baby! Denver-fucking-Colorado. But I’ve been thinking, do we want another sex demon? I know an incubus or two we could kill. But there are seven other energies. I don’t want to mess with Morpheum. That shit can get weird on you quick, and I don’t want to fuck around with Baku. We have enough shit we’re pissing off.”
Jack had to think a minute. Morpheum was dream energy. Baku must be creatures that dined on dreams.
Gabby mussed Bailey’s hair. “Oh, you’re so cute to have forgotten. We have to kill two demons and get their teeth. A Baku won’t work!”
Bailey let out a wail. “I just fixed my hair, Feathers! Don’t be mean!”
“I’m sorry,” Gabby said with real concern on her face.
Bailey had the sun visor down. “It’s okay. I’m just sensitive about my hair.” She pouted.
“I really am sorry.” Gabby sighed.
Jack patted the demon’s thigh. “You look great, babe. Really.”
“Thanks,” the demon muttered. Sometimes she could be so moody. Bailey brightened and snapped her fingers. “I know the perfect place. It’s kind of a mini-Vegas in Denver for the rich, on Capitol Hill. We’ll have our choice of demons. They love to hang out there.”
Jack got on Santa Fe and headed north. “So, the Fugs eat time, demons seem to dine on a variety of energies, but angels only like Nefesh.”
“Except for me,” Gabby muttered. “Since I have this body, thanks to you, I can feel Ijjinaya. But yes.”
They chatted more as they drove the hour into Denver. Then they pulled into a rich neighborhood in the Capital Hill district. There were a lot of big houses with lots of land. In the distance, Denver’s skyscrapers rose into the sky.
Jack found a place to park. He turned to Bailey. “Tell me about this place.”
The demon grinned, one eye blue, the other back to being a gleaming red. “Welcome to Denver’s version of Sin City, baby.”
Bailey certainly was excited. Jack couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
BAILEY ROLLED DOWN the window and lit a cigarette. It mingled with her spicy perfume perfectly. “It’s called the Wycombe House, but some of the rich and famous refer to it as the Hellfire Club. To be a member is a hundred thousand dollars a year. Once you pay it, once you go inside the Wycombe House, the law is nonexistent. Sex, drugs, gambling, whatever kink, and whatever fetish you could ever want is in there. It’s fucking dripping with Ijjinaya. Whenever I got hard up, I would just hang out there.”
“And churches,” Gabby pointed out.
The sex demon shrugged. “And churches. What can I say? I like horny religious people. But anyway, I’m pretty sure Gudzu and Carpitia will be in there. They wait for people to die, which they do all the time in the Wycombe House. In the meantime, Gudzu and Carpitia sip off their Decaysia. Death demons are the worst, but I prefer them to Reapers.”
Jack put it together. “Baku eat dreams. Reapers eat death energy. Got it.”
While they talked, he loaded up the four empty cylinders of the Eternity Cannon. He measured out the powder, then tucked a patch in the hole, followed by the round ball. He used the long loader lever to stuff the ball and patch back into the powder. Then he had to set the blasting caps on the nipples at the back of the cylinder. He rotated the barrel until the hammer was over one of his new loads. He wanted to see if his manual reloads would work.
Jack nodded. “Everything is always eating something. Way of the fucking world.”
Bailey laughed. “That’s right. Way of the fucking world. Nice.”
Gabby sighed at them both. “You think your cynicism is so cool. Do you know what’s cool? Love and laughter. Come on. I know I’m going to hate this place, and I want to get this over with.”
They got out of the car, and Jack brushed his thumb over the soldier. Magically, the inked key switched to the left. The birds stopped singing. The cars froze in the streets.
The three walked up to an iron gate that surrounded the old mansion, one of the first in Denver. It looked like the governor’s mansion—it was as grand, and the grounds were as manicured. Though it was fall, the grass was green, and there were even some flowers.
Jack noted the security cameras. On the gate hung an intercom. Normally, people would have to get buzzed in. Also, Jack had seen a valet parking service, a guy in a black uniform with a red starburst on his chest. That would probably be a hellfire starburst.
Bailey summoned he
r war pick and slammed it into the lock. It shattered. Half the gate shattered. The sex demon let out a happy sigh. “I love destroying things.”
“Lovely.” Gabby shook her head, looking desolate.
The trio strolled up the path.
Bailey told them the plan. “We don’t want Gudzu and Carpitia to use Exoria on the angel...if they even know it. They probably don’t. But if they do, and they use it, it’s not the end of the world. Gabby can come back in that same body, or at least I think she can. I just don’t want to take any chances with her.”
“Because you care?” Gabby didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course you care. You’re not just a rogue sex demon. You’re so much more.”
That made Bailey shake her head. “Whatever. The minute you kill them, Feathers, I need to be there to snatch up their teeth. Gudzu has a big scimitar like a cleaver, if I remember right. Carpitia has a spear. Both teeth are going to have lots of spikes, so I’ll have to be careful.”
“And I’ll shoot the demons to see if my loads work,” Jack said.
“They won’t, sweetness,” Bailey said. “You’re dealing with ancient artifacts that require spells, lots of spells. Gudzu and Carpitia might know more. We might want to keep them alive for just a bit, just for me to make sure of a few things.”
“This is not a plan.” The angel flashed brightly. Suddenly, she had both her sword and her horn. “This is just a raid. As for this body, I have grown so accustomed to it. I was able to fashion it out of Corpus, thanks to Jack’s power, but I really don’t want to lose it.”
“Because you love your clit.” Bailey laughed. “Hey, Feathers, how come you didn’t add pubic hair?”
“Because, uh, I didn’t really think about it,” the angel said, embarrassed. “I mean, Steph shaved down there. Have I told you about Bill and Steph? They were the nicest couple. They love each other so much.”
Bailey grimaced. “They sound boring.”
The front door was big and locked up tight. Again, there was a camera and an intercom. Bailey pointed her war pick at the door. “Blow it down, Feathers. I don’t think we’ll need much of your horn action to deal with the butt-munches here. Not that butt-munching is bad. Like what Evelyn did to me. I was shocked. But in a good way.”
“I’ll not be able to look this woman in the eye.” Gabby lifted her horn to her lips. She let it blast and the door went smashing down, along with most of the doorway itself and some rock.
Of course, other than the destroyed door, nothing moved because the timestream was stopped.
Jack went in first, the Eternity Cannon in his grip.
It was a nice, opulent living room, where a guy in a suit was on his phone. A woman in lingerie was halfway up the stairs.
Of course, Bailey tilted her head to look up her gown. “Nice.”
Jack and the women walked through an archway and into another room. There was a bar, some pool tables, and a room with nothing but TVs. The same baseball game was on all the monitors. The Rockies were playing.
More men in suits played pool, or sat here and there, drinking and watching the game with cigars in their fists. You could smell the tobacco smoke, but you could also smell the money. The employees were all women, in various layers of dress, though there were some beefy security guards in the corners, arms folded across their chests. Ornate glass doors led to the locker rooms, the gym, and a pool area.
Nothing moved. Jack expected to see maybe some Interim. Not here, not at that moment. He thought about trying to lift some wallets, but he couldn’t touch the people or else it would start time up again. And there it was, the limits of his powers. Moral compass or not, he wasn’t all powerful.
“Upstairs,” Gabby said. “I can feel the demons, I think. They are awful. I can smell more cigars. I will never understand this smoking thing.”
“Smoking is sixty-nining with death. If you do it long enough, you’ll both get off in the end.” Bailey turned, ass swaying, and walked back through the archway.
Jack and Gabby followed her into the living room where the front door lay on the ground near the staircase. They had to squeeze past the woman in lingerie on the stairs. Bailey, though, fell behind since she couldn’t resist grabbing the ass, hips, and tits of the woman. Also, the sex demon leaned in to lick the frozen woman’s face. “She smells really good.”
“Stop it, Bailey!” the angel hissed. “What you’re doing is wrong!”
The demon puffed out air in disbelief. “Good thing I’m a hell-spawned demon forever damned, or I’d really be worried. Don’t worry. This is Jasmine. I mean, her real name is Elizabeth, but she calls herself Jasmine. We’ve partied. She wouldn’t mind me licking her. She hasn’t before!” Bailey giggled.
They kept on going.
Upstairs, there was a big room down to the left and lots of small rooms to the right. Bailey hurried to a door and threw it open. Her hands went to her face. “Come and look at this shit!”
Gabby shook her head. “No. I can only imagine...”
Jack wasn’t so shy. He stood behind Bailey, peering over her shoulder into the room. Two women, presumably prostitutes, were dressed up as animals. Both were on a bed, one as a cat, the other as a dog, as a fat man fucked the dog and had his hand on the cat’s ass.
Bailey pooched out her lips in a pout. “That pretty kitty is going to get the dick next. Lucky girl. And I think he might stick his dick in her cat-girl ass.”
A voice came from the main room, a growl, a whine maybe.
Gabby hurried down to where Jack and Bailey stood in the doorway. The angel pulled them away. “Come on, you two. I hate this place—it’s all mostly Ijjinaya and Decaysia. There is some soul here, but it feels sad. And the humans think it makes them happy.”
“If you think you’re happy, you’re fucking happy,” Bailey said and moved past them. “Carpitia! Gudzu! Hey, I have some questions for your funky asses!”
Gabby took a fresh grip on her glowing sword. “I hope Bailey knows what she’s doing. She pretends to, but just because she thinks she’s competent doesn’t make her competent. I’m right about that at least.”
Jack and Gabby hurried after the sex demon.
The second floor’s main room had richly polished wooden floors, lush carpets, and another bar, only this one also had a mixture of drugs—cocaine in vials standing on a mirror, joints on a silver tray, and some glass pipes on a stand. A basket of Hellfire Club matchboxes lay nearby.
The woman behind the bar was tall, black-skinned, and beautiful. She wore a red-and-black teddy and had muscled arms. On the other side of the room, sitting on a stool in the corner, was a huge man without a neck. That would be the poker room’s security guy.
Green poker tables filled the right side of the room, where a sliding glass door led to a patio. Six men sat at a table, all holding cards. Piles of cash lay on the table—stacks of hundred-dollar bills. From the shape of their suits and the shadow of stubble, they’d played through the night, the morning, and were throwing down cards into the afternoon.
Behind one man was a flabby figure with a frog’s face. No hair, just gray-and-green skin, and folds of flesh. White mold filled some of the cracks in his skin. The vile thing was currently licking the throat of a rich guy, a guy Jack recognized as Preston Tarrington, Boy Rolex himself. Sitting next to him was an older man, the elder Tarrington it looked like—Tim Tarrington, Daddy Rolex.
Once again, seeing the Tarringtons made him think of the Malcolms, the richest family in Plum Creek and the people that had destroyed Jack’s life. He could totally see the Malcolm men coming to the Wycombe House—they could afford the hundred grand price tag, that was for sure.
Jack shook away that old hate. He had new hate to enjoy.
Behind Daddy Rolex stood a willowy brown thing, a troll-like woman with sagging breasts and green hair, and a face like the trunk of a tree. She had her cottonwood lips open, and she was sucking on the earlobe of the father.
Both things had blood-red eyes.
/> Jack grabbed a box of matches and then came forward, gun raised, with the angel and the demon right next to him. They converged on the poker table.
Froggy spoke first in a guttural toad voice. “Bitch of a sex demon come to eat the fuck. Bitch succubus needs to leave. This is our feasting table, for the death is rich here, and the desperate pleasure is our plate.”
The willow thing let out a whine. Her voice was high and reedy and just might break crystal. “But the bitch has brought a filthy pigeon woman with her. Heaven’s vile light is in her sword.”
Jack kept the revolver aimed at the demons. “Let me guess. Froggy is Gudzu and the willow lady is Carpitia.”
The demons looked at the gun and both their mouths dropped open.
At least Jack and his ladies had made a suitably dramatic entrance, and they had the attention of the demons.
That wasn’t all. The first of the little rat men wiggled up from the lap of one of the other gamblers. They’d been under the table.
“What in the fuck are those things?” Jack asked. “And what were they doing under the table?”
Bailey’s laughter wasn’t sane. “Well, this got a whole lot more interesting.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
JACK WATCHED THE RAT things come up from the table—if anything, they were like a cross between a rat and a gnome, with matted black fur, bright pink hands, and dirty yellow claws. Big white whiskers sprouted from their rat noses, and their eyes were completely black. Black lips split to show jagged yellow teeth, gleaming with spit.
There were four of the things, and they leaked Kairos.
It was Bailey who recognized them. “Ratling Fugits sucking dick. So this little poker table is like a buffet table for the damned.”
“Not damned yet,” Gudzu croaked. “Death eats them, and we eat death, until their time is done. Then we shall have their Nefesh.”
Jack could see how that might be a symbiotic relationship. The Fugs ate the time from the men, and when they died, the death demons stole off with their Nefesh. However, there was a lot that Jack didn’t understand about the new reality he’d discovered. For one, could a Fug literally eat all the minutes of someone’s life? And how did that work?
