Old Dude led me through the tiny entryway and into his living room. Every inch was covered in UFO paraphernalia. Yellowing news clippings detailing sightings papered the walls. The ceiling was plastered in UFO photos of varied graininess.
I let out a low whistle.
Years of cigarette smoke had baked into every particle of the place and was rapidly baking into me. I didn’t want to spend any longer here than I had to. I lay a hand across my mouth and chin as if deep in thought, but really trying to make a filter so I wouldn’t gag.
A wooden bookcase held models of different types of spaceships and figurines of alien races. I scanned them, noting the careful detail. “You made these.”
“Give the girl a gold star.” His sarcasm grated on my nerves but I needed the snitch’s location.
“I’ve always wondered about alien life,” I said politely.
He snorted, scratching at his stubble with a nicotine-stained finger. “Because you’re stupid? They don’t exist.” He glanced wistfully around the room.
“Demons exist. Why can’t aliens? Maybe they’re just waiting to show themselves.”
He exhaled a stream of smoke at me. “False hope’ll kill ya.”
I fanned the second-hand death out of my face. “Then why have all this?” I motioned to all his ufology stuff in confusion. “The models alone must have cost a fortune.”
“African nations have smaller GDPs than I spent on these fuckers.” His jaw hardened. “Two doctorates and I still got it so wrong.” He ground his cigarette out in a mug with Scully and Mulder’s faces on it and the phrase “I want to believe” written in blocky print underneath.
O-kay, bitter. “Goblin,” I prompted.
The old man blinked as if he’d forgotten my presence. “You allergic to small talk? Sit down already.” He dropped into a worn recliner with several burn marks on the shiny arms. “Did you bring payment?”
My face fell. “Payment?”
“A token of gratitude for my information. It’s a give and take economy here, missy.”
I lit up my left hand, holding its snapping crackling glory out with a cruel grin. “One zap or two?”
The unlit cigarette he’d just picked up tumbled to the carpet. “Rasha?”
“Give the man a gold star.”
“How?” He reached over to pick it up, popping it in the corner of his mouth.
“Shit happens,” I said. “Now, the clock is ticking. I’m not up to snuff on all the Rasha rules and regulations, plus this is an unsupervised visit, which means I have no trouble finding out firsthand how much damage I can do to you.”
He lit the cigarette. “Do your worst,” he rasped. “I never planned on living this long anyway.”
“Figured the mothership would get you long before this, huh?”
He sucked down a lungful of death, pursing his lips and making three lopsided smoke rings. “Aren’t Rasha supposed to be menacing badasses?”
I shot a couple of sparks at him. “I’m a menacing badass.”
He leaned back in his recliner with a smirk. “You don’t have the literal or figurative balls to hurt an old man, and since you didn’t bring the appropriate bribe, we’re done.”
I stood there seething because he was right. I couldn’t hurt him. But if I didn’t, and word got out that I was soft, it’d mean a rep as easy prey.
Easier prey.
“Tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you.” If the Vancouver chapter dealt with this guy even semi-regularly, there had to be some kind of contingency fund for the bribe. Though I shuddered at the paperwork involved. And explaining how I’d found him. Could I bribe Ms. Clara to keep this visit from Rohan?
The old man rose out of his seat, heading for the front door at a good clip. “Out you go…” He paused, half-turning back to me. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Nava,” I sighed.
He choked on his cigarette. “Nava?” He stabbed a finger at me. “What’s your last name?”
“Katz,” I replied, totally confused.
He burst out laughing.
“Old man, you’re pissing me off.”
A few more guffaws and he got himself under control. He tore a corner off a detailed sketch of an alien, grabbing a stubby pencil and scrawling something across the drawing. “The goblin should be here for another half hour.”
I took the paper. “What about the cost?”
“This one’s on the house.”
“Why?”
He reached his knobby fingers out as if to pluck the paper away. I got the hint and fled.
I plugged the address he’d given me into the car’s GPS, finding it on a two-block long street in one of the skeezier areas of town. I pulled into the tiny, weed-choked parking lot, gazing up at the sputtering neon sign for Motel Shangri-Lola, having had no idea this place existed.
Motel Shangri-Lola was a low slung building painted a faded green. More a memory of green than actual paint. Lola wasn’t some former grand dame of a motel fallen on hard times, no, she’d been brought into existence a hard-livin’ fungirl. An impression made more vivid by the row of outward-leaning scraggly pines extending from either side of the building, like legs drunkenly falling open.
I slammed the car door, strode up the sidewalk, flung open the lobby door, and gasped. My eyes watered at the overpowering stench of tuna fish. I threw my sleeve up over my nose until I’d climbed the worn stairs to the second floor. Sniffing and finding the air tolerable, if not fresh, I dropped my arm, searching the room numbers for 207.
It was a thick brown door like all the others in the hallway. I pressed my ear against it, but couldn’t hear anything, so grasping the knob and finding it unlocked, I opened it, hoping to surprise the demon.
A dim table lamp provided the sole lighting in the room but it was strategically placed to show off the velvet painting of “Shangri-Lola” herself, a large-breasted wonder in shades of blue. On the table under it sat a digital recording device, capturing the sounds from the room adjacent to this one. Specifically the slow but steady pounding of the headboard against the wall and some man’s rumbled, “Yeah, baby. Use that cat tongue.”
I didn’t realize he’d meant it literally until I heard his partner answer in some kind of demon language. Seems the snitch was a goblin P.I. on the case of some human/demon bow chica wow wow. Gathering evidence of a little interspecies adultery?
Speaking of the snitch… On the far side of this room, lay some short chick in shadow. She rested atop a garbage bag spread on top of the faded bedspread, staring up at the ceiling, one black, knee-high boot tapping against the lumpy double mattress.
I hadn’t expected a female goblin. I stepped closer trying to spot her pointy red cap and long white beard, or just her facial features, when I got distracted by the guy in the next room orgasming with a final hard pound against the wall and a lusty shout.
There was silence for a minute and then the sound of wet snuffling. I grimaced.
“One minute you’re enjoying your tawdry affair in a bed solidified with the sweat of a thousand asses, the next you’re laying in a demon wet spot with the niggling suspicion that your kink is a bit too out of hand,” said the woman here with me.
I froze, knowing that voice anywhere. “Leo?”
My high school best friend bolted up, allowing me to see her face, and the familiar fall of red hair that spilled over one shoulder. She blinked her brown eyes twice, her small silver eyebrow ring glinting as it caught the light. “Nava? What the shit are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” My brain failed to compute her presence.
She motioned toward the neighboring room with the sex noises. “I was on a job. P.I. work.”
Huh? But the old dude had sent me here because– “You’re the goblin?” My heart stuttered. That wasn’t possible. This was my Leonie in her trademark black stockings, cut-off shorts, and funky T-shirt worn underneath a cool velvet long-sleeved shirt, accessorized with all her silver jewelry.
Leo scrambled off the bed, looking around frantically. “Is Ari here?”
Ari?! A growl tore from my throat and I slammed my crackling hand right into her chest, knocking her back.
“Psycho!” Leo threw a chair at me.
It winged me in the gut.
“Fuuuhhhck.” I ran after her but she’d raced into the bathroom and slammed the door. “You used me for my brother?” I jiggled the knob but it didn’t turn so I tried ramming it with my shoulder. Still nothing. Lola had surprisingly good bones.
I pounded on the door. “Come out here and face me, you demon coward.”
“Who said I was a demon?”
“Nice try.”
She pounded on the door back at me. “Stop pounding!”
My hand was getting red. I considered blasting the door open but didn’t want to risk sending all of Lola up in flame. That didn’t stop me threatening to do it if Leo didn’t open up.
“You pyro cow!” she screeched.
“Practice for what I’ll do to your manipulative goblin ass as soon as you unlock this door.” I kicked the wood.
“I can stay in here all night,” she tossed out in a self-righteous tone.
I pulled a chair up close, straddling it backwards. “As if. You can’t go two hours without food.”
“I didn’t use you for Ari. I didn’t even know you existed at first.”
“Because that makes it so much better.” My heart pounded in my ears. Our entire friendship was a lie. It wasn’t that she’d hidden her goblin status from me, or that as a demon, she’d infiltrated my family to spy on my brother, though those ranked close seconds on things I was pissed about. The thing that hurt the most, that knotted my guts and strung my chest tight, was that our friendship hadn’t even been real, just another means to an end in the ongoing demon-Rasha war.
I don’t know how long we sat there in silence, me white-knuckling the top of the chair. Long enough for Cat Tongue to hit round two with his bed partner in the next room. Long enough for my hurt to harden into rage.
Long enough for Leo to say, miserably, “I’m hungry.”
“Then come out,” I answered in my sweetest voice.
There was a pause before she spoke. “How are you Rasha anyway? Your balls finally drop and you realized your pathetic rack was really flabby manboobs?”
I kicked the door, relishing her yelp. “I prefer Fallen Angel. My hot badassery could no longer go unrecognized.”
Her snort sounded like an asthmatic donkey. Hearing it again, I almost laughed. Almost. “You can’t kill me,” she said. “Goblin or not, I’m still the one who leant you my favorite shirt for your first date with Stefan and held your hair when you puked your guts out later because he was such a dickhole.”
She totally had. “Had you actually been my friend during that time, those points would count in your favor,” I snottily replied.
The door flew open. Leonie hopped out, a tiny ball of fury, and winged a roll of toilet paper at me. “There may have been a few facts I left out about my personal history but I was totally your friend. You dumped me. You stopped calling me.” She crossed her arms, her chin jutting out.
That was kind of true, too. “You were spying on my brother.” I stroked my chin. “No wonder you always had to pluck your chin hairs. I thought you were part goat, but it was just your goblin heritage.”
Leo covered her chin. “Take it back. You know I’m sensitive about that.”
I bleated at her.
She smacked me. That’s when it descended into the worst of catfights.
It was official. I sucked as a demon hunter.
12
Half an hour later, Leo sported a split lip and my scalp was raw from the hair that she’d pulled out, but we’d exhausted our pent-up resentments and called an uneasy truce. We made our way to our favorite diner, the only conversation in the car being Leo’s comment that my dad’s taste in music still sucked balls.
The Chesterton had gone hipster in the year and a half or so since we’d last been here. Gone were the abundance of spidery ferns and the mini jukeboxes at each booth. Now, a DJ spun electronica in one corner, while an open kitchen showcased the tattooed staff making hand-scratch food and baked goods. At least I didn’t have to suffer through the misery of a communal table. A blessing upon the crippling cost of gut-job renos that kept this place from complete desecration.
I studied the collection of kitschy salt and pepper shakers on shelves running the length of one wall, searching for a safe topic of conversation because I wasn’t sure how to dive back into the shark-infested waters of our hemorrhaging friendship.
“Leonie? Nava? Ohmigod!”
We both winced at the squeal from the cash register. “Back Rub” Bailey was our high school’s most popular everything, with a tendency to get touchy-feely when she got drunk. Bailey was also the sweetest person who ever lived. I think she bottle-fed endangered baby seals in her spare time. Leo and I were just such cynical twats that she grated on us.
But we pasted bright smiles on our faces and gave the requisite hugs.
“What are you guys up to?” she asked.
“Crim major,” Leo said.
“Got some things on the go,” I replied.
That earned me a pity smile. “That’s great.”
I nodded gamely. “What about you?”
“I’m dancing with Ballet BC now!”
My smile wavered. Bailey was a bunhead and as determined to make it with her dance career as I’d been. “I’m happy for you.” I wasn’t petty enough to be catty since it was ballet. Had she been a tapper, shanking may have been involved.
Leo shot me a sideways glance before asking, “Still dating Suki?”
A brilliant smile lit up Bailey’s face. She thrust out her hand. “Engaged!”
Leo squinted at the small diamond. “Hmm. Princess cut, nice girth. I grade–”
“H grade,” Bailey corrected.
Leo shot her an appraising look. “Half carat. Payment plan?”
Bailey blinked. I could have enlightened her about the whole goblin thing and their gem fetish, but it was just clicking for me why Leo had always made us swing by the jewelry stores at the mall when we were teens to check out the most jewel-encrusted old lady designs.
“Um, cash,” Bailey said. “Those interest charges will sneak up on you.”
“Find you in a dark alley and try to break your kneecaps,” Leo said, nodding sagely.
Bailey’s mouth fell open in a horrified “O.”
I cut in, leaning my elbow on Leo’s shoulder. She tried to jostle me off, but at five-foot-two, her shoulders were perfect resting height, and there my elbow remained. “You picked a winner, Bailey,” I said. “We’re happy for you.”
The hostess motioned to us that our table was ready, so we said our good-byes.
“You think her and Suki have figured out how to make out like normal people yet?” I asked, sliding into the booth across from Leo.
Leo put in her drink order then leaned toward my face in slow motion, her mouth open wide. “Kiss me,” she said in a weird distorted voice.
“Yeah, baby,” I answered, equally slowly and messed up. Our mouths came closer and we snapped our teeth at each other a few times. Then my anger trumped our jokey solidarity and I dropped the mocking impression, sitting back with a rigid spine.
That set Leo off. “‘We’re happy for you.’ Gawd, you are Rasha. Earnest bitch.”
I slapped my menu down on the green and white marbled arborite tabletop. “All right. You’ve got one chance to stop me from dusting you after I eat. Asmodeus, what do you know?” I figured the Rasha code of silence didn’t apply to demons. Well, not this one.
“Not much beyond he’s big time.” Leo didn’t look up from her menu, but she also didn’t scratch the inside of her right wrist so she was telling the truth.
“Can you get a message to him?”
The waitress arrived with Leo’s Coke and my water, asking for our orders–pulled
pork poutine for me because, bad Jew, and a mushroom burger that I know Leo got so that I wouldn’t want a bite. Fungus was a medical condition to clear up with ointment, not food.
Leo took a dainty sip of her Coke. “Are you going to apologize?”
“Why? So you can and it’s all better? It doesn’t work that way,” I said. “You came into my life, into Ari’s life with the intent to cause harm. It’s an unforgivable offense. Plus, you know. Demon. Which, what? Are you glamoured up right now?”
Leo violently crunched a piece of ice. “I’m a half-goblin. From the French fling that led to my existence. Mom still doesn’t know and I don’t have another form I revert to. So no. No glamour required.”
“You’re a PD?”
“Yeah, I’m Pissed. Definitely.” Leo ripped off a chunk of her burger. “Screw you. I’m not practice.”
My best friend from high school was a halfie, a practice demon, though the moment I’d seen Leo’s expression, I’d regretted saying it. “I’m sorry about that but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a goblin.”
“You’re a lot of things, Nava,” she said, “but I never thought you were prejudiced.”
“I’m Rasha. You’re evil spawn. It’s natural order, not racism.” I traced a line through the condensation in my water glass with intense fascination.
“Good luck navigating the demon world with that attitude.”
“What’s there to navigate?” I toyed with the salt shaker, tilting the salt back and forth between my hands. “Kill. That’s it. It’s pretty black and white.”
Leo plucked the shaker out of my hands, dumped some salt in her palm, and licked it. “Nice try. Also, you’re wrong. It’s all shades of gray. That’s your problem, Nee. You’ve never seen that. None of the Rasha do.”
I slammed my hand against the table. “You lost all rights to that nickname.”
She held up her hands, more warding me off than calming me.
The waitress deposited our food without picking up on the tension.
We ate in silence for a bit.
I stirred a fry around in the gravy. “What do you mean that none of the Rasha see the gray? Is that relevant to Asmodeus?”
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz Book 1) Page 14
