Bertha peered up at me. “What?” she asked, sounding put out.
“Was this from MOG?” I showed her the file.
“Nope. One of the Ex-Angels just reported it. Is there a problem?” It sounded more like a dare than a question.
“No. It’s fine. I’ll take care of it.” I turned to Pauline, trying to hide the fact that I was furious with my ex-best friend. “We’ll take these three for now. Don’t want to overload you on your first night out.”
Not to mention I wanted to have time to investigate. How I’d do that with Pauline tagging along was beyond me. Maybe if Simeon didn’t hate me for giving him a bogus strike he’d still be willing to discuss what information he could give me over lunch tomorrow. I’d do just about anything to solve this mess before any more blood was on my hands.
Chapter Seven
Simeon,
I am back in town as you might have heard. I would like to meet with you as soon as possible. There is much we need to discuss. Please give your answer to my courier so that we might set up a time and place.
~SSS
The weatherman said tonight was going to be chilly and windy. I didn’t take much stock in weather prediction in Colorado since it could transform from a sunny sixty degrees to a havoc-wreaking blizzard in less than a day. I’d seen it happen before, and it wasn’t pretty. The trick was to be prepared for the worst.
I handed Pauline the three demon case files and told her I’d meet her in the parking garage. Then I went to my apartment to grab my fuchsia ski jacket. Fuchsia is a bold color for a gal like me, especially with my blaring red hair, but when I noticed this particular jacket marked down seventy-five percent at the sporting goods store last spring, I’d snatched it right up. An Angel’s spending budget was trifling, so I shopped the clearance racks as much as possible.
The best thing about this jacket was its deep pockets that substituted for having to lug around a purse. I stuffed them with my wallet, keys, lip balm, and hand cream—the weather was so dry out here—and my dead cell phone. If I could only remember to plug the darn thing into the charger in my car. Not that it was of any consequence. I hardly ever used it anyway. Judd was the only one who ever called me, and I wasn’t talking to him for at least another twenty-four hours. He needed to pay for what he’d done.
I decided to leave Simeon’s extended file that I’d printed out on Judd’s computer at home. There was no point in bringing it along if Pauline was with me. She probably wouldn’t understand my reasoning for wanting to research half-breeds, Simeon in particular. So I dropped it onto the kitchen counter, hoping I could read through it after my shift.
Pauline was standing by my car when I got off the elevator, which answered my question about whose car we were taking. I remembered she drove an early nineties model sedan, so I was fine with driving.
She had the case files clutched in her hands, and her lips pursed tightly together. I bet she was nervous. I couldn’t blame her. This was her first time out on the streets, and a gang of evil thumb stealers was on the loose. Not exactly the most opportune time to be trained in Demon Control.
I unlocked the passenger door for her and hopped in on the driver’s side. We both plugged in our seat belts, and I peeked over at Pauline to see that her perfect bronze tone had completely drained from her complexion, leaving her as pale as me.
“We’ll be fine,” I said. “I heard those injured Angels didn’t stay together.” I was such a liar. “So all we need to do is keep close. They might mess with one of us but definitely not two.”
“Okay.” Pauline’s cheeks started to gain some color, so I forgave myself for fibbing. Sometimes it was necessary, right?
When I turned the engine over, Steven Tyler’s high-pitched squeal blared from my speakers. I flipped the knob to mute but not before Pauline jumped and white-knuckled the door handle.
“Sorry,” I said, and she let out a haughty breath.
Lovely. This was going to be a long night if I couldn’t listen to music.
Our first stop would be the pornography director since this was only his first strike, and odds were he wouldn’t fight us. I had Pauline recite the address for me. The demon named Harry Bigone had a house just east of Colorado Boulevard on East Colfax. He ran his so-called business out of it. So there was a very good chance we’d find him there.
“That’s it right there,” Pauline said with a lilt of excitement in her voice as she pointed at a two-story beige brick house.
The neighborhood appeared to be fairly decent. Too bad this guy was mucking it up. That was what demons did, I supposed. They brought out the worst in humans and the earth we all lived on. It was a damn shame.
I parked across the street in case Harry saw us and ran. Unlikely, but with everything that had been happening lately, I didn’t want to take any chances.
Pauline took in a deep breath as we crossed the street together. If I were her, I’d be asking a million questions, but I guess she was the type to learn by observation. Or maybe she was simply scared out of her mind.
I decided to help her out by answering any questions she might be have been asking if she weren’t so petrified. “This guy should be easy. It’s his first strike this time around. We’ll go in, press a thumb to his heart, and be gone.”
Pauline nodded.
“His past strikes have been mostly for profiteering and sexual exploitation of a human like this one.” I tapped the folder Pauline was clutching. “He’s a pervert, for sure. And perverts aren’t usually fighters. But sometimes they try to grope if they’re feeling frisky.”
“Grope?”
“Yeah, don’t worry though. Just keep your distance, and you’ll be fine.”
We cut across his yellowed lawn, the dead grass crunching under our feet. It was dusk, and there was a light on inside behind the sheer red curtains covering the window. When we reached the door, I knocked once.
The door swung open, and a voluptuous blonde with big hair, missing teeth, and no clothes smiled at us. I kept eye contact because I really didn’t want to see anything else.
“Who’s there?” a man called from farther inside the house.
“A couple of girls,” she said while scratching her lower regions. “You didn’t tell me you hired more.”
Beside me, Pauline let out a small terrified gasp. She stepped back, and I grabbed her arm before she could run. Demon Control rule number two: Never falter in the line of duty.
Demons flourished when they sensed panic, especially if it was coming from an Angel. What was Pauline thinking? Freaking and bolting would be the worst thing to do. And this woman wasn’t even a demon, just a hideous human.
I pressed on. “Is Mr. Bigone available?” I asked, giving his last name a hard “e” at the end.
“Come on in, sweetie,” the hussy said. “What’s this about?”
I hauled Pauline in with me and shut the door behind us. The front room was decorated with every animal print imaginable, and a few animals’ heads hung jarringly from each wall. I guess this was some human’s definition of sexy. I thought it was creepy.
“Just a visit,” I said. “My partner and I have seen Mr. Bigone’s work and think he’s a genius.” May MOG forgive me for my deceitfulness. At least it was easier to lie to people I cared nothing about.
“Your partner? Oh, you mean you’re a couple?” She seemed excited by the idea.
“You got it.” I played along by pinching Pauline’s stiff flushed cheek and finished the act off with a smoochy sound. “Isn’t she a cutey?”
The woman clapped her hands together in delight. “Harry is going to be thrilled. He’s never had a fan come to his business before. Come on back. He’s in the studio wrapping up a scene.”
She led us into what would have been the dining room in an alternate, less perverse universe. There were red velvet drapes hanging from the ceilings, covering all the walls. On top of a double-sized bed in the corner of the room was a naked young woman on her hands and knees, preparing f
or a mutant penis man to penetrate her backside. The thick air assaulted my nose with the stench of unprotected sex, rank body odor, and undeniable evil.
My stomach churned with nausea. I could only imagine what poor Pauline was feeling.
Harry Bigone called out, “Cut!” behind a handheld digital video camera and turned toward us, his nose sniffing the air in our direction. “Ten minutes, people. Go freshen up, get a drink, take a piss, whatever. I need to speak to these two ladies for a second.”
“They’re fans, Harry,” the blonde woman said.
“Great. Get out. I’ll sign their tits or something and send them on their way. We’re on a tight schedule here.”
Harry unbuttoned his lavender polyester shirt even before the room was empty. Like all demons, he was an attractive guy. He had shoulder-length brown hair and movie-star eyes. And like all demons, his nasty attitude negated his outward appearance. Moreover, he smelled like his momma didn’t teach him how to wipe his ass properly.
“You fucking Angels need to start making appointments, all right? I’m in the middle of shooting a fucking love scene here, and you ruin the whole thing. It’s going to take another goddamn hour to get that guy hard again.”
I ignored him and stepped forward to press my thumb to his hairy chest crusted over with a white substance I couldn’t identify, nor did I want to. “This one’s for violating Code One and Code Three, Lust and Greed. You persuaded an underage teenager to act inappropriately for money.”
“Fuck that. She was eager to take her clothes off and get to it. Your fucking Codes are ridiculous.”
“Really? Does that make you want to rebel against the system, Mr. Bigone?” I asked, testing the waters.
“Rebel?”
“You know, join a gang and take out the Angels?”
“What?” His eyebrows squished together. “Do you think I’m fucking stupid? I got a goddamn business here, lady. I don’t got time to even think about you bitches.”
“You know any demons who’ve talked about revolting?” It didn’t hurt to ask.
He blinked at me. “Fuck no.”
“Just checking. If you come across anything of that nature, don’t hesitate to call our hotline.” I smiled and headed out the door, dragging Pauline with me.
She looked green by the time we got to the car. I opened her door for her and assisted her inside before getting into the driver’s seat.
“If you have to vomit, let me know, and I’ll pull over. Vomit smell is the worst kind. You can never quite get it out.”
She nodded. “How do you do it?”
“You get used to it.” I grabbed a sanitizing hand wipe from a container in my glove compartment, and scrubbed my hands with it. Angels were immune from diseases, but the thought of having Harry Bigone’s cooties on me wasn’t all too appealing.
“He was repulsive,” Pauline said and gagged a little bit. I handed her a hand wipe.
Yep, repulsive was the best way to characterize Harry Bigone. I thought about Simeon and how I’d used that word to describe how I’d felt about my affair with him. It wasn’t even close to being true. Simeon wasn’t like these other demons. Far from it. He was decent and clean. Plus, he smelled really good. I turned to Pauline and wondered if she’d feel the same way about Simeon or if she’d see him as just another vile creature, proving that there really was something wrong with me.
I didn’t want to find out. “We’ll go locate the bar-fight demon next. What’s his name again?”
Pauline opened the file. “He calls himself Mikey Tyson.”
I stopped to get a cherry cheesecake to-go from the Cheesecake Factory before heading to the city of Golden where Mikey lived and liked to hang out. I’d offered Pauline a piece, but she’d declined. Too many calories, she’d said. So I’d told her to drive so I could eat. What could I say? Cheesecake was my passion. One might say it was almost as good as sex. A harmless replacement, if you asked me.
After we reached Golden, we passed in and out of a couple of bars before heading down Washington Street, the main strip filled with boutique shops and restaurants—a tourist’s paradise. There were several bars and taverns in this city but only a few Mikey hadn’t been kicked out of. We passed under the large arching sign that read, “Howdy Folks! Welcome to Golden,” and then we took a left, heading down a street that shadowed Coors Brewery.
I parked along the sidewalk, and we started toward the last bar on our list. The distinct smell of barley filled my nostrils as we crossed the street, and I wondered for the umpteenth time how the residence of Golden could get used to it. I supposed it was a small price to pay for living at the foothills of the majestic Rocky Mountains. Absolutely beautiful.
Despite the frigid weather, there was a crowd of people gathered on the outdoor patio, drinking and having a grand time. I glanced around but didn’t notice my target.
“You see him?” I asked Pauline.
She shook her head, so I led the way inside the rowdy bar filled with drunken women and lucky men.
That was when I spotted him.
He sat at the bar with a cute young waitress standing between his legs. She was giggling and smiling. The dim-witted human didn’t have a clue she was flirting with a malevolent creature from Hell. Behind them, the bartender was red-faced and glaring at my target. I was sure Mikey was stirring up more trouble to start a fight. Playing at people’s weaknesses was his specialty.
“Why don’t you guard the front door,” I said to Pauline. “If he gets past me and attempts to escape, then follow him outside and tackle him down. Our goal is to steer clear of witnesses.”
Pauline raised an eyebrow at me.
“What? It’s okay if you think you can’t handle the situation. You can wait in the car if you want.”
She sighed. “I’ll be fine.”
To be truthful, witnesses weren’t a huge problem. Humans were oblivious to any Angel or demon supernatural activity, including when an Angel deported a demon. Whether it happened in a crowd of people or in private, humans simply had no idea of what was happening. Their minds weren’t at that level and couldn’t conceive such an unearthly act of Spirits rising from the ground. Nor could they fathom demons and Angels ignoring gravity by climbing walls or levitating several feet in the air without assistance.
Nevertheless, I always used caution. Just in case. Humans were constantly evolving. How long would it take for one to notice? To see past the haze and realize there were events going on around them that superseded their realm of thinking.
I suppose you could compare it to the poltergeists that roamed the earth. A rare human could spot one. A rare human would notice. Or the psychics who could tap into the future and the past. They had superior abilities. I was sure it wouldn’t be long before the act of demon deportation was sighted.
I wanted to avoid that, as I was sure most Angels and demons did as well. The less humans knew about us the better.
Mikey saw me coming. He didn’t have to sniff my scent to know I was an Angel. We’d crossed paths a couple times before, so he was well aware of why I was here. He pushed the waitress to the side and set his baby blues on me. Mikey looked like a young Brad Pitt from his Thelma and Louise days. Cute but ornery.
“I’ll be back,” he told the young woman.
“Or not,” I said. “Want to take a walk with me outside?”
“Not really.” He stood, threw a bill on the counter, and strode past me.
I trailed close behind, maneuvering around people and furniture and watched as Pauline allowed him to pass her through the door, stumbling over her feet in the process. I could see how her job as MOG’s receptionist was a much better fit.
Once outside, as I expected, Mikey ran...and fast. I yelled at Pauline to get the car, and then I took off on foot after my target. He crossed the intersection, dodging cars and proceeded toward the Coors Brewery building. I kept my sights on him. I wanted to detain him before he reached the massive structure. If he made it inside there, he’d have
a good chance of escaping. I’d taken a tour of the brewery once and knew it had many floors and many hallways to get lost in.
Mikey took a sharp turn before reaching the parking lot and headed down a narrow street flanked by the brewery and a mountainside. Crap. I didn’t want to lose him in the mountains either. There was something about the deer and their big huge eyes that freaked me out.
I was getting closer to him, but before I could grab him, he leaped up and grasped onto the side of the building. A demon’s skill to scale a flat wall never ceased to amaze me...and make me green with envy. Why did they get this power? What was so special about them?
Mikey was out of my reach, so I used the only skill I had. I sprouted my wings, and I hovered off the ground until I was able to grab his ankle. I gripped on and forcibly yanked him down before he could start kicking at me.
He fell to the concrete platform below with a blow that knocked the air out of him. Before he could get back up, I dropped down, pinning his arms to the side with my feet and ripped open his T-shirt. I didn’t hesitate as I pressed my thumb to his chest right next to the other two thumbprints.
Immediately, a whirl of hot wind blew up through the cracks in the concrete followed by inky-colored smoke that heated my skin and rushed through my hair. Hell Spirits. They swept up like an ominous tornado, swirling in the sky right above our heads.
I glanced down at Mikey who was staring at me with reddened eyes and flaring nostrils. “All Angels are going down, Abigail,” he said, his voice thick with malice. “He will see to it.”
“Who’s he?” Damn. I should’ve interrogated him before giving him his strike. There wasn’t much time.
“Oh, you’ll find out, Abigail.” He laughed, and I noticed some of the black smoke enter his mouth, causing him to choke.
“Does he have blond hair?”
“You dumb bitch, if you were smart, you’d already know. It’s right in front of you.” More choking. “I hope you die of your own ignorance.”
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