His Grace

by Aya DeAniege

“No,” I said in the same tone.

  “Tell me about your week, I haven’t seen you since last Sunday,” she said, settling into the other chair. “How are your classes going? And don’t one word answer me this time.”

  “Gee, Mom, I don’t know.”

  “Come on, active role play in real life situations is the easiest way to re-program years of missed family interaction. You can’t learn to be normal if you’ve never had the chance to be normal.”

  “I talked lots with the foster parents about school. They just weren’t listening most of the time,” I said in my own defence. To which she gave me a look.

  I sighed.

  “Fine. School is fine. I’m passing my classes. The finals are coming up soon. Three more years of this hell to get a decent job.”

  “It’ll be worth it though,” Lilly said.

  “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  “I realize you’re used to being your own cheerleader, but real people need that all the time. You talk to someone, and they say that to you, you shouldn’t be bitter back, even if you know they’re just parroting what they think they have to say. Normal people need a cheerleader.”

  “If they aren’t self-motivated, they’re fucking morons,” I grumbled. “Like, there’s this guy in class, and he constantly needs reassurance that he’s the best at everything. Since when does a guy need to be told he’s good at something? Since when is he allowed to ask?”

  “It’s rather recent, but gender equality and understanding goes both ways.”

  “I don’t think it should extend to ‘brah, does this hat make me look cool, er what?’ in the middle of a lecture,” I protested.

  “You’d probably want a self-assured man,” Lilly said.

  “You just tried to reassure me, and it pissed me off. What do you think?”

  “I think you need a man who isn’t going look at you with big puppy dog eyes and plead with you silently to tell him that he’s a good boy.”

  “Wait, no. Lilly, no, you are not finding me a man.”

  “Of course I’m not finding you a man,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m ticking through a list of people who I know who you might get along with, yes, but not finding you a man. You decide to maul him, that’s your thing.”

  “Should have gotten the number of that guy last night.”

  “Yeah, what’s up with that? The other two were kind of hot, but him?”

  “Why don’t you think he was hot? Because he was black?” I asked.

  “He was black?” she asked. “No, Grace,” she smacked my arm. “You didn’t even listen to what he was saying, just the tone of his voice. He had cheesy pickup lines and just fumbled the close. I’m surprised you agreed. Which is why I think you need a man because it’s inappropriate of me to ask if you have a toy in place of a man.”

  My face flushed with embarrassment. I focused on my coffee for a moment and took a sip as Lilly turned to her mug.

  “I suppose I should get going,” I said, looking at the clock on the kitchen wall. “See if I can pick up a shift at the restaurant, they’re usually bogged down by now and begging for people.”

  “Except when it’s you working, no one comes in for you,” Lilly said pointedly.

  “Yet again, I need the money.”

  “They also don’t pay you by the hour when you pop in, only letting you take your tips.”

  “It’s still good money,” I said with a shrug.

  “You should take the day off.”

  “Yet again—again—I need the money,” I said.

  “Why not move in here with me? I have a second bedroom. You can pay for the bedroom and some of the bills.”

  “You only have one bedroom,” I said.

  Lilly shook her head. “I have a study. It was a bedroom. I just set my desk up in there. It meant I could work and be focused on work. I could move the desk into my room. Goodness knows it’s big enough. I’ll charge you what you’re paying now since the bedroom is probably the size of your apartment.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “I am about the size, but I'm serious. Think about it.”

  “Except then I’d move in, and you wouldn’t take my money.”

  “Of course I’d take your money,” she said with a snort and a shake of her head.

  She muttered something as she brought her cup to her lips, something I didn’t quite catch. I was betting it was some loophole in taking my money like she’d put it into a savings account for me, or invest it into the stock market and make me a bunch of money without my permission.

  Maybe I should do that.

  Financially, it was smart. The entire offer was almost too good to be true, but I knew Lilly, I also knew that she had certain quirks that I didn’t like, but at least I knew that going in.

  I swallowed and stared into my coffee mug.

  “The room is smaller than mine,” I said.

  “It is, it definitely would be smaller than your apartment. The rest of this would be mine. Your furniture would have to go, besides your bed. I insist on it being cleaned before entering my apartment though, that’ll cost you some money. Use of the public areas, of course. I expect eventual help with cleaning, as I’m comfortable, not as you are.”

  “I want to pay less in rent.”

  It was a bold move. Lilly knew what I paid in rent for my ‘roach infested closet,’ as she called my apartment. I was hoping to pay less based on the fact that that money was for a full apartment, and her rent was for just a room.

  I wanted to get out of the bug infested building, but I couldn’t justify that move for the same amount of rent as I was paying before.

  “Okay, what wouldn’t wound your pride?” Lilly asked.

  “Five hundred a month?” I asked.

  “Deal,” she said.

  “That was fast,” I muttered.

  She shrugged. “I thought you’d want a hundred off, not a couple hundred. And if that means you can afford a course, or a new laptop for school, who am I to argue?”

  “I don’t have a laptop for school.”

  “You’re the only one not to have one, I should add. Five hundred, partial bills because you’re rarely going to be here anyhow. Oh, and you water the plants.”

  “I can do that,” I said. “I just have to arrange for movers.”

  “No, you arrange to clean your mattress, me and my friends will help you move for the standard fee. A pizza, a bottle of wine for the girls and a six pack, no, better make it twenty-four for the boys. Don’t want them to argue. Give notice, and we’ll move you in at the end of the month.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll contact my landlord and let him know I’ll be moving out. In the meantime, I’m going to head to work for real. Gotta clean that mattress and all.”

  “Or sleep on the floor for a month or two and buy a new mattress,” she said.

  “Or, spend the hundred to clean the mattress and sleep on that while saving up for a good one,” I said. “Did you see where I put my wallet? It wasn’t on the table with my phone this time around.”

  “Maybe in the key bowl by the door?” she offered.

  I went to the wooden bowl by the door and pulled my keys out of it. The keys were the only items in the bowl, Lilly always hung her keys on the wall hook beside the door. The bowl was for everyone else, that way they didn’t have to pat down their pockets or lose their keys in her couch.

  “No, it’s not here,” I said with a frown.

  “When was the last time you had it?” she asked.

  I swore. “Before Seraph. I must have dropped it in the bathroom. Damn it, I’ll have to swing by and get it back.”

  “Danny took the car,” Lilly said. “Let me at least buy you a cab home to get your car to get to the club, okay? Walking that far will take you forever, and you’ll lose out on that shift you want.”

  “Don’t you want me to miss the extra work?” I asked.

  “Not if it means you walking twenty city blocks.”


  “It only takes an hour to walk it.”

  “And you’re the only person I know crazy enough to think about walking an hour and deciding it’s ‘only’ a small amount of time,” Lilly said with a shake of her head. “A few dollars will get you there pretty quickly. You can pay me back once you get your wallet. I mean, if you had it, you’d be taking a cab anyhow, right?”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “Only because you won’t let me walk anywhere anymore.”

  “It’s not safe to walk,” she muttered. “Call me when you get home. I want to know you made it safely and got inside without any problems.”

  “Yup, like always, or you show up and tell my landlord I’m dead again,” I grumbled.

  “I was worried that you were dead, worried,” she protested. “I’d never tell someone you were dead unless I thought you were dead.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, opening the door of the apartment. “Behave yourself. Don’t go buying me house warming gifts.”

  She pouted, which told me that she had planned on doing just that. I laughed in response and waved goodbye before leaving the apartment and heading downstairs.

  Lilly did not live in an overly rich neighbourhood but in a well off one. The building was spotlessly clean and far outside of my price range. I think they called it an up and coming neighbourhood, because the building definitely belonged in a richer area.

  I couldn’t even afford half of her rent. Probably not even a quarter of it, especially because I had to pay tuition.

  Her offer was generous, more than generous. While we had only known each other a couple of months, I didn’t doubt that she would keep her side of the bargain, though she would find every loophole she could to keep me from paying for anything.

  Because that was the kind of friend Lilly was to those who she liked.

  I had met her and just known. She was a kindred spirit, someone I had trusted from the first moment she had looked at me, smiled, and said, “oh, honey.”

  For her party girls, she’d pay the tab and get them into the best clubs. I had even watched her gift some expensive designer bag to one who was feeling blue about one of her boyfriends.

  For me, she bought me food, cleaning supplies and offered a room at an obscenely good price.

  She had no alternative motive. She wanted nothing from me. Nothing at all. She would accept what I insisted on giving in response, the rent and such, but she was unlike any person I had ever met before.

  As I left the building, I looked around, trying to hail a cab. They all just passed me by. But then, I was dressed in wrinkled clothing, my hair was a mess, and I was under dressed considering the building I had just walked out of. Grumbling to myself, I pulled out my phone and simply called a cab company. The wait could be long, but at least I had a shot at getting someone to actually stop for me.

  I waited almost an hour for a taxi to show up and then he grimaced as I got in the back of the cab.

  I told him where to go and tried not to attempt to smooth the wrinkles of my shirt self-consciously. I was a crinkled mess. I didn’t look like much at all. At my apartment, I paid the man, then went upstairs immediately and showered, changed, and made myself presentable. In my waitress outfit, I headed back downstairs.

  Leaving my building, I stopped still as a man in a suit moved away from a black car. It was that moment of knowing. He was there for me. Lilly said it was body language, she praised me on my ability to read others, while chastising me on only being able to understand the darkness in other people.

  The man came toward me. I stopped, stiffened, and looked him up and down.

  “Can I help you?” I snapped.

  I felt like I was about to be kidnapped, and that never boded well for any young woman. The man stopped just out of arm’s reach and cleared his throat.

  “I was sent by Sam Angelica, the owner of Seraph,” the man said. “It seems an item of yours was found in the club after closing. He would like me to take you to him, to pick it up.”

  My wallet. Thank goodness someone wasn’t out spending all my money or committing identity fraud with it. I was pretty lucky, considering I had dropped it in the bathroom of his club.

  “Why didn’t you just bring it with you?” I asked.

  “Mr. Angelica doesn’t believe in giving the lost items of his clients to other people,” the man said quietly. “He does it in person, to make certain that the item is returned to the proper owner. If you’d please.”

  All of my identification had been in the wallet. There was no way for me to get replacements. It had been hard enough getting the cards in the first place.

  I folded my arms and glared at the man.

  “And how am I going to get back here?” I demanded.

  “I will drive you there, and bring you back,” he said quietly.

  “And this Mr. Angelica, what exactly does he want with me?” I asked.

  “From my understanding, Mr. Angelica simply wishes to return a lost item to you. He has sent me to fetch both men and women who have lost items in his club before. He takes a hands-on role in such matters.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Fine, I’ll go with you. I just have to check in with someone first.”

  “As you wish,” he said, moving back to the car.

  I called Lilly. I let her know where I was going and gave her the license plate of the vehicle. She suggested that maybe the tall, dark, and handsome man from the night before had sent the car to me. He had been dressed well enough to have owned the club.

  His having my wallet would make sense, given the fact that we had been in the bathroom stall together.

  This time I was advised to listen to what he said. Then she hung up, and I took in a deep breath.

  Once I arrived, or if I felt like I was being kidnapped, I was to call her again, and she’d call the police. Or, with my luck, she’d find a car of her own, hunt them down, ram us until the car stopped moving, then rip the balls off the driver.

  Yup, I said it, rip his balls off.

  The driver opened the back door of the car, and I grimaced at him but got into the back. I buckled in as he closed the door and walked around the vehicle to the driver’s side door. He slipped into the car and pressed a button to start the ignition.

  “I’ll have you there and back before you know it,” he said.

  Yeah, like I believe that.

  The moment I laid eyes on Grace, I felt it. There was a change to the air, a crackling along those threads of fate that humans couldn’t see. Her destiny was at risk. She was a giant neon flashing sign to demons everywhere, screaming out a ‘find me.’ She simply had a presence to her that would draw the supernatural and strange.

  To the humans, she was Grace, the good student and hard worker. My physical eyes saw a petite woman who, despite her schedule, did not appear worn out or stretched too thin.

  Where did she get the energy?

  To demons? She was a giant ball of catnip just waiting to be ripped into.

  She was supposed to have nothing wrong or strange about her, no deep, dark secrets. Somehow I found it hard to believe.

  There was a bitter annoyance to her as she stopped just short of my desk and glared at me.

  I refocused my eyes and looked at the physical woman before me.

  Not tall, not short. She looked more underfed stray than a woman that a demon might want to reside within. There was no flesh to burn through, but perhaps she had trouble putting weight on with the demons attempting to ride her.

  Which really only meant that she was a little too thin. A woman shouldn’t have been a stick, she had to have a figure to her, to have a roll if she bent over. A bit of fat above her hip bones and around that was perfectly natural. Grace didn’t have that, but she didn’t have the look of a woman who starved herself on purpose.

  Her face had few lines, but she seemed to make no facial expression at all, even as she managed to show me just how pissed she was at being called like a dog.

  It was all in the eye
s, in the body language. The way she forced herself to stand on two feet, how relaxed she was, as if she had simply stopped caring about the consequences of her actions.

  She was a very dangerous woman.

  I met those brown eyes and tried to act like the concerned businessman. The moment our eyes locked, my legs grew weak. I watched her, watch me. Neither of us made a move as we assessed the body before us.

  The only picture that did her justice was the one which her friend Lilly had taken, where she was laughing, with a glass of wine in her hand. Even as that showed her so well, I couldn’t help but feel as if it left out a very important part of her. It only showed her happy side. Not the rage filled predator just waiting for an excuse to attack.

  Humans I met were typically one or the other. Happy or angry. Pessimistic or optimistic. This woman appeared as neither of those things and yet both at the same time. She was a balancing point, a stone in the cosmic justice system.

  They were very rare, yet at the same time, demons stayed away from them. Those balancing points were very important in keeping demons in the physical plane of existence. Destroying a stone could topple the favour of balance toward the demons, but God had a dirty sort of humour.

  The last time a stone had been destroyed, demons had lost the ability to leave Hell in their physical forms. They hadn’t made the same mistake again.

  “Mr. Angelica,” she said, in a chiding tone as she held out her hand. “I believe you have something of mine.”

  She was defensive, keeping distance between us.

  “Miss. Williams,” I said with a small smile.

  Williams was right up there with Smith, but I could trace Grace’s entire life. Carefully monitored by the foster system, then tracked by her internet browsing history, which was slowly downloading onto my computer from her cellphone. I just had to keep her in my office long enough for the invasive program to do its work.

  That inter-connectivity that everyone fostered? It was easy to slip into the back door and take what you wanted or needed if you knew how to. Anything she had done on her phone, anywhere she had visited, if there were an app that she often used, I’d know all about it.

  I just had to stall in making my dinner offering.