Demon Rogue (The Half-Demon Rogue Book 1)

by Erikson, D. N.

  “You my keeper now?” I said.

  “Maybe you need more help than you can admit.”

  “I’ve been around the block a couple times,” I said. “I know how this works.”

  I dumped a waterfall of whiskey into the tumbler, right up to the brim. It sloshed over as I brought it to my lips. The familiar burn made me feel alive as it touched my tongue. And the pungent aroma brought a clarity.

  I took a long sip, then set the glass down.

  “How does someone like you end up here?” Nadia said, searching my eyes for answers. I just stared straight ahead, at the empty wall, where I hadn’t bothered to hang anything for the past few years. No reason to do that when you have to pack up and leave, for one reason or another, all the damn time.

  “Deadly handsome and startlingly witty?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Inonda’s a nice enough place,” I said. “Why not make roots?”

  “Because that’s clearly what you’re doing.” She clicked the glass with her fingernail. “I’d ask to share, but there’s only one glass in the cabinet.”

  “Don’t have much company.”

  “I can see that.” I drained the rest of the glass, and went back to the well. No reason to stop now. I could always pick up the investigation in the morning. The fuzzy feeling was beginning to wash over me, cleanse the bad taste of the past day and a half from my palette. I’d make a shit drunk, but every once in a while, getting loaded was a good slate cleaner.

  And right now, a little more than forty-eight hours before I had a showdown with a god killer, seemed like a good time to press reset and consider my options.

  The water stopped, and I heard Argos splashing around.

  “He even has a rubber duck,” I said. That was bullshit, but I was seeing how dangerously close to dropping the bomb I could get without pulling the actual pin.

  Nadia didn’t bite. “Not a bad parlor trick.”

  “He’ll be devastated to hear that.”

  “Maybe you should get some rest,” Nadia said, rising from the table.

  “And where are you going?”

  “I have friends.”

  “I’m gonna find out about your mother’s amulet,” I said.

  “Just get some rest, Kal,” Nadia said, patting my hand before heading to the back room.

  My brain raced, trying to come up with a way to get her to stay. Something smooth, clever, like you see in the movies. Sonnet worthy. How roses paled in comparison to her grace. Nothing came. I don’t think that’s a defect that comes with being a demon.

  Just being an asshole.

  She walked past, wearing a billowing white shirt, bag containing her last remaining belongings over her shoulder. I should’ve said something.

  Instead, I looked at the whiskey and kept drinking.

  The door clicked shut, not with a bang, but with a muted whisper.

  My fingers traced the edges of the leather journal from the strange package. In the bathroom, Argos shook off, his ears flapping against his head with a loud whomp-whomp-whomp. His toenails clicked against the scuffed hardwood as he joined me.

  With a single leap, he bounded on to the table.

  “You always were a charmer, Kal.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  He was about to say something else, but then he yelped in surprise. I thought I’d accidentally put my arm on his tail. But no. He gripped the strange metal instrument in his teeth and turned to face me. His eyes blazed with a look like I was the dumbest man in the world.

  “Special delivery,” I said. “What?”

  His eyes fell to the journal that I was currently using as a coaster.

  The gauge tumbled from his mouth.

  “Forget Origin of the Species,” Argos said, staring at the book like he’d found the holy grail. “Do you have any idea what that is?”

  “Boring,” I said, lifting my glass. He used the opportunity to gingerly drag it away with his teeth.

  “The Journal of Annihilation,” Argos said, with rapt awe.

  “It came in the mail,” I said, my eyes growing heavy from drink. “Or some shit. Who cares.”

  Then I curled up on the table and fell asleep.

  14

  I woke up with a splitting hangover and fewer answers than when I started. Argos was curled up in the corner, either pretending to be asleep, or finally getting some rest after my night of drunken snoring. Probably had been up late, studying the rather ominously named Journal of Annihilation. There wasn’t enough room on the plate for more complications, so I ignored the package’s contents. After hobbling into the bathroom and checking my bare torso in the mirror—quite the shade of purple banding across my chest—I hopped into the shower.

  The cold water ran over me, clearing my headache and centering my thoughts.

  There were a lot of problems that needed fixing. Addressing the right one was the key to staying alive. Life is like that—it presents you with a fistful of bullshit, tosses a dozen daggers into the air at once. Catch the right one, it yells gleefully from the sidelines. Eleven blades are made of rubber, the last of obsidian.

  My job was to find which problem was going to actually kill me, and allow the others to bounce away.

  Hopefully everything wasn’t going to be lethal. If that was the case, I was a sitting duck in a hailstorm of sharp pointy objects. Not a fun place to be stuck.

  I got dressed, tugging on jeans and a white T-shirt. The leather jacket hung where I had tossed it on the couch the night before. My pockets jangled from all the random supernatural evidence I’d recently acquired.

  This time around, I made sure to grab the .45 from my nightstand before heading out. The Remkah Talisman hung from my neck, but if the Order of Marksmen were afoot, that wouldn’t do me a damn bit of good.

  I checked my messages. Charon had left me a voicemail. He sounded lucid, which was always a good sign for a late night call.

  “Kal,” he started in that chain-smoking gritty voice of his, “they’re here. Someone’s outside.” I heard glass crashing in the background. “I’ve pissed the Crimson Conclave off for the last time, I think. Go to your office. I hid something beneath the—”

  There was a burst of static. Something that sounded like a lightning bolt sizzled as the line went dead. I wiped my forehead and listened to the message again. Yeah. Definitely magic. High level stuff, from the way the connection cut out. Charon, if he wasn’t loaded on Ambrosia, was no slouch. You don’t become Ferryman of the Underworld without chops.

  You do lose that gig, however, by losing them. So even off the sauce, his magical chops were a little rusty.

  I dashed out into the morning sun. The stale aroma of burnt plywood clung to the air from the semi-blackened façade of Nadia’s apartment. There was no sign of her, but then, I wasn’t expecting there to be. Whereever she had gone was hopefully far away from here.

  The drive to the office usually took ten minutes, but I got there in four. If Detective Scott was still working a normal beat, he would’ve had a field day throwing me in the slammer for all the traffic laws I’d broken.

  Skidding into the front of the dispensary, I barged into the side entrance leading to my office. I took the stairs three at a time. Whoever had taken Charon had meant business. I needed to find out what he’d hidden in order to get him back. Rushing in there with my pants around my ankles like a naïve rube wouldn’t help my warden.

  Entering the office, I played the message again.

  “Beneath where, you old drunk,” I muttered as I listened to his final words. The call had been truncated, thus omitting a few important details. Such as where I was supposed to dig. My landlord didn’t like me very much as it was, so I had no qualms about ripping the floorboards up. But doing that wasn’t really an option, unless I wanted to pull the demon magic out f
or a spin.

  If there ever was a time…

  No.

  Charon hadn’t saved me from the jaws of death, from Marrack, to become a braindead evil spirit. Neither me nor Charon were gonna win person of the year any time soon—even if we were the last two men left alive. But devouring your soul to win the day was the definition of a Pyrrhic victory.

  I glanced at the case file sitting in the corner, the one that had taken me years of careful assembly to put together. Despite his issues, Charon was smarter than he seemed and a clever warden. He had never given me an out over thousands of years.

  And here the exit door had appeared, and I was going ignore it and scramble to save his stupid ass.

  Sometimes I didn’t know where my head was at.

  I got on hand and knee along the well-worn floor, searching for loose boards or hidden nooks. After five minutes of fruitless searching, I leaned against the wall. Running around like an idiot wasn’t going to help.

  That was good advice for the other problems looming, too.

  But being a demon comes with consequences. Your darker emotions—rage, envy, greed—can overtake you if you’re not careful. Blur your judgment, force you to make rash decisions. If I wasn’t careful, I would become exactly like Isabella and Marrack.

  “Quit thinking,” I said out loud. “This isn’t helping. Solve the fucking problem.”

  The plea fell on no ears but my own. Still, it was enough to drag me off the ground, over to the desk. The rickety thing quaked and shook as I looked for hidden compartments.

  No time.

  I brought my boot straight through the center, splintering the piece of office furniture in half. It went nicely with the broken door aesthetic I had going courtesy of Isabella. I bent over and searched through the wreckage, my hands torn raw by the jagged hunks of cheap wood.

  I found something taped beneath what used to be the third drawer. Ripping it free, I turned the object over in my bloodied fingers, trying to work the tape off and identify what it was at the same time. The item fell to the ground, and I cursed.

  Slow down, Kal. Deep breaths.

  After a brief respite, my skin cooled, and I crouched down.

  It was about the size of a pebble. I turned it over in my palm, eying the small stone. Despite its appearance, it wasn’t an ordinary rock.

  It was a magical security camera.

  I whispered to it in ancient Greek, instructing the essence within to be unleashed into the air. A smoky trail began flowing from the pebble’s smooth top, the colorful strands playing out a scene before me.

  It was kind of like watching one of those blurry VHS tapes that’s been copied too many times. But I got the gist of the scene fine.

  Charon tugged in a cage full of howling pups, looking around with a wild look in his eye. He muttered something—there’s no sound with these cameras—and then left the room.

  “You dumb motherfucker,” I whispered as the door closed, leaving the pups by themselves. That was his play—to get back in with the Crimson Conclave by revealing the Sol Council’s little bioengineering project. Clearly he’d been doing some deep digging to find out about that shit.

  The feed sped up, the werewolves taking turns playing with one another, sleeping and all that other puppy nonsense. Without a time stamp, it was impossible to tell just how much time had passed. Then the smoky image coalesced into something new as a figure entered the room.

  The image cleared up enough for me to recognize that this was the damn crime scene. My breath caught, wondering if Charon was responsible for everything.

  But the figure, unaware that they were being watched, clearly showed their face as they cut up one of the were-pups and ushered the rest of the litter out of the room.

  The smoke evaporated, but I had all the answers I needed.

  No wonder Athena the Goddess Killer had told me to lay off.

  Because she was the one behind it all.

  15

  In a light daze, I walked down the stairs, out into the Texas summer. The smell of medical grade pot drifted from the dispensary. An endless blue sky blanketed the space above, but even the prettiest day in the world wasn’t enough to bring my spirits up.

  Athena had warned me to back off.

  And she must’ve taken Charon as a way to drive that point home.

  I could say it was his own damn fault—and it was, really—but it didn’t stop me from feeling responsible.

  Moving like I’d been punched in the stomach, I didn’t even notice the police cruiser until it pulled onto the curb next to me.

  Detective Scott hopped out of the car, his eyes shining with a demented mirth.

  “Trouble seems to follow you around like a mangy dog, Aeon,” he said, his hand on his holster. “I’m gonna have to ask you to head downtown with me.”

  “I’m not in the mood for your games, Detective,” I said, too frazzled to even poke the bear.

  His partner, Rodriguez, stepped out from the other side of the Crown Vic. I eyed them both warily, sensing that this wasn’t just an ordinary harassment call.

  “Thing is, we’re not really asking,” Scott said, his tone deadly serious. “Lot of bad things have been following you, Aeon. And I can link you to them all.”

  “That so?”

  “I always get my man.”

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to decline your offer,” I said, taking another step toward my junked-up sedan. “Generous though it may be.”

  Both men drew their guns. I heard the safeties click off in ominous unison.

  “Down on the ground,” Scott said. “Or we will put you down.”

  The hairs on my arm bristled. I don’t really like being told what to do. Call it a reaction from being bossed around by Charon for too damn long.

  “You’ll want to put those away.”

  “You listen to this guy, Dom? Thinks he’s Butch Cassidy or some shit,” Detective Scott said. But I sensed the slightest tremor of fear beneath the faux-machismo.

  “Yup,” Dom said, more a grunt than a word.

  I glanced down at my waistband, where the fold of the black leather jacket hid the .45 tucked away. They saw that, I was gonna have more holes in me than an old sponge. Funny how things work. When the gun’ll get you killed, naturally you pack the gun.

  So I stood stock still and stared ahead, past the cruiser, down the street.

  “What’s this about, anyway?”

  “Body showed up on your front steps, Aeon,” Officer Scott said. “Got your name all over it. Literally.”

  “Be kind of stupid to sign my work, don’t you think, Detective?”

  “I think, for a guy like you, that might just be another day at the office.”

  “Very well,” I said, raising my hands behind my head. “It seems you have me.”

  Scott’s face scrunched up, like he wasn’t sure whether to buy it. But his eagerness got the best of him, and he holstered his pistol in favor of some handcuffs. There was still Detective Rodriguez to consider, but this was a start.

  He began closing the gap, stalking me like a lion would a wounded gazelle.

  “Statueus holdus,” I said beneath my breath. An emerald light shot out from the Remkah Talisman. Detective Scott froze in mid-step, a look of bewildered horror flashing across his stupid face.

  He tried to breath and form words, but his lips refused to move. Detective Rodriguez turned in confusion to shout out to his partner.

  I drew down and shot him twice in the leg. He crumpled to the hot sidewalk, howling and clutching his shin. Rushing over to kick the gun away, I felt his hands claw at my jeans, desparately still trying to fight.

  I shook him off, grabbed his police issue Glock, and then walked back. Officer Scott was still frozen in place, one leg ready to take a decisive step forward.

  “You’ll be al
l right,” I said. “Little breaths. I know it hurts.”

  He burbled something, a thin trail of spit dribbling down his chin.

  I removed his walkie from his belt and radioed in for paramedic help. Then I dropped it to the pavement and walked away.

  “I thought Scott was a crazy son of a bitch, Aeon,” Dom screamed as I revved the car’s engine. “But my god, he was telling the truth.”

  Under normal circumstances, I might do something dickish, like wave, or smile.

  But I wasn’t feeling so jovial.

  I gunned it away from the office, headed toward home.

  Someone had left a calling card on my front step. And damned if I wasn’t going to answer it.

  16

  Or I would’ve, if the entire complex hadn’t been barricaded off by the cops. Popping in for a quick looksee wasn’t going to fly when I was suspect numero uno—all but confirming my guilt by attacking two of Inonda’s finest.

  Instead, I made a quick U-turn at the cross-street, so that I wouldn’t be thrown in jail.

  My phone buzzed, and I answered the call.

  “Kal,” Argos said, his voice coming over speakerphone, “don’t come home.”

  “One step ahead of you buddy,” I said, whipping the wheel around a turn. I wasn’t sure where I was headed, but most of the usual places were out. The cops would be staking out everything.

  “They’re looking for you,” Argos said. “Say you killed him.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I ran out the back window,” Argos said. “I’m at Lux.”

  “Thought I heard you panting.”

  “I just heard the thud, Kal,” Argos said, a little whine creeping into his voice. “I’m sorry, man.”

  “Not your fault. You smell him?”

  “They were gone too quick.”

  “Worth a shot,” I said.

  “How are you doing? I don’t know how you feel about it—”

  “Being chased with pitchforks? It’s happened before,” I said, laughing with a lightness that I didn’t feel. There was a not quite like this I was omitting. “I’ll be all right.”

  “It’s just, you know, he saved us both. I mean yeah, he was kind of a prick, but…”