Deadtown

by Nancy Holzner

Page 15

  “Jesus,” he whispered. “What are you?”

  I felt a little queasy from that surge of destructive power, but I cleared my throat and made an effort to speak coherently. “I’m the demon killer. ”

  Lucado pointed his scar at me and blinked his sightless eye. I’d scared him; now he was trying to scare me back.

  “You don’t want to hire me?” I shrugged. “Fine. Go ahead and lie awake in bed each night, having your liver ripped out by disgusting, stinking bird-women. ” It was a guess, but Lucado’s demon problem had to be Harpies. Hard to believe, but even a guy this sweet and charming might have an enemy or two out for revenge.

  He stared at me, his jaw hanging, the hand I’d nearly crushed cradled against his belly. It was my turn to start walking away.

  “No, wait!” Desperation rang in his voice. I kept going, the click of my heels ringing through the construction noise like gunshots.

  “Please!” Ah, the magic word. I stopped and turned around, eyebrows raised.

  Lucado practically ran over to me. He glanced over his shoulder at the other men. “I’ve told nobody about that. Nobody. How did you know?”

  “I know my demons, Mr. Lucado. So, are you ready to talk business?”

  He smiled, stretching the scar. The smile touched his good eye, almost making it twinkle. “A businesswoman. Now that I can understand. Demons and shit”—he shuddered, then shook his head—“that stuff’s too spooky for me. All I know is I’ve gotta get rid of those things. ”

  “I can do that for you. ”

  He smiled again, shaking his head. “I believe you. I wouldn’t have thought it to look at you, but man . . . ” He rubbed his sore hand.

  We discussed terms. I was still a little pissed at the guy, so I added twenty percent to my usual fee. He didn’t bat an eyelash, just wrote a check for the first half, the other half payable after the job was done. I wanted to schedule the extermination for the next night—I was still down on sleep—but Lucado wouldn’t wait that long. Now, he insisted, tonight. He wouldn’t budge on that, but I’d expected it. By the time clients get around to calling me, they’re usually pretty desperate, even a tough guy like Lucado. Especially a tough guy like Lucado. Guys like him think they can handle it themselves—until the Harpies have tormented them to the brink of insanity.

  After we’d agreed on terms, I needed some information. I pulled out my notebook to take it down. First I got his address and phone number. He lived in a two-story condo at the top of a brand-new building on Commodore Wharf, in the North End. Nice location. He’d developed the building.

  “What time do you usually go to bed?”

  “Around eleven. Why?”

  “I need to know when the Harpies are likely to show up. ”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense. ”

  “Bedroom on the top floor?”

  “Yeah. In the front. ”

  “Which direction does it face?”

  He had to think about that for a minute. “East, I guess. Yeah, east. The bedroom overlooks the harbor. It’s got a balcony and a big picture window. ”

  “Is that where the Harpies enter?”

  He closed his eyes, his face pale. The scar stood out in a scarlet slash. “Yeah. When I moved in, I loved that window. Loved the balcony even more. Great view. Now I can’t stand to look at it. I’ve thought about bricking it up. ”

  “That wouldn’t stop the demons. ”

  “Yeah, I figured that out. Every night they smash through the glass. But in the morning it ain’t broken. ”

  For a moment, the scar made him appear pathetic—defeated—instead of brutal. He looked so exhausted and afraid that I felt a little sorry for him. Well, almost.

  I handed him a copy of my standard instruction sheet for Harpy exterminations. “Tonight, you need to do exactly what this sheet says. ”

  He nodded and looked it over. “Wait a minute. It says I gotta take a sleeping pill. I don’t do pills. ”

  “Tonight you do. ” It was one of my hard-and-fast rules. “This one,” I added, holding out a bottle with a single pill rattling around inside. I had a special license that allowed me to dispense them to my clients.

  He didn’t take it. “But I want to see you kill those bastards. ”

  “Clients often do. I don’t blame you, but it’s a bad idea. You’d get in my way, for one thing. But the battle can be traumatizing. You could get hurt. ”

  “I can handle it. ”

  “Maybe you can. But we play by my rules, or I don’t take the job. ” I rattled the pill at him.

  Lucado’s dead eye stared at me like a marble statue. He ran a finger along the scar, from just under his eye to the corner of his mouth. Up and down, up and down. When I didn’t blink, he shrugged.

  “Okay,” he said, taking the bottle. “You win. But I want to see the carcasses when you come back in the morning. I want to see those damn things dead. ”

  “I can do that. ” I headed for the elevator. But then I stopped and turned around. “I always win, Mr. Lucado. Whether it’s demons or clients, I always win. ”

  He laughed and nodded. “I bet you do. ”

  9

  I HEADED HOME THROUGH THE NEW COMBAT ZONE, which was deserted in the afternoon. Things never got hopping here until well after midnight. I walked past storefronts with cracked, dusty windows. A sheet of newspaper somersaulted down the street, then wrapped itself around a lamppost. Now and then I had to step around the prone form of a vampire junkie sprawled across the sidewalk. Vampire saliva is both narcotic and mildly hallucinogenic to humans. Combine that with a vampire who gets carried away and sucks out more than the legally allowed pint of blood, or with a junkie who goes around offering dinner to several vampires all in the same night, and you’ve got zonked-out humans sleeping it off wherever they happen to fall. When closing time rolls around, bartenders in the Zone simply drag ’em out by the feet and dump ’em on the sidewalk. And when the bars open again after dark, the junkies are back on their bar stools, hitting on the vampires for another fix.

  Nobody bothered about the junkies because nobody patrolled the New Combat Zone—nobody besides the Goon Squad, and they didn’t care. I stepped over a junkie who lay on his back, snoring. At least the guy had a smile on his face.

  As I walked, I clenched and unclenched my fist, trying to diminish the tingling in my arm. The demon mark wouldn’t leave me alone; it itched and burned. Okay, so Difethwr was in Massachusetts. The Hellion’s proximity would probably make the mark flare up. But at least I was safe in Boston, safe inside the shield.

  But it wasn’t mysafety I was worried about. Since the Destroyer had reappeared in my life, I’d nearly lost control twice. Over nothing. In the Goon Squad interview room, one minute I’d felt upset and crowded; the next minute those feelings had ballooned into a murderous rage. And all Lucado had wanted was a pissing contest. So the jerk thought he could squeeze the little girl’s hand until she said “Ouchie. ” That was no reason to kill him—and I’d come way too close.

  I seriously needed to work on my anger management, at least until the Destroyer found some other place to play. The mark amplified rage; it brought the anger too close to the surface. What if, losing control, I shifted? This close to the full moon, I couldn’t count on my human personality to keep an enraged predator—a tiger or grizzly or something like that—under control.

  I’d have to be careful. Whatever happened, I was not going to let the Destroyer make me into its instrument of destruction.

  AT HOME, JULIET WAS STILL IN HER ROOM WITH THE DOOR closed. I went into my bedroom and stood in front of the bookcase that held my demonology library. It was puny compared to Aunt Mab’s, and it certainly held no mystical books bound in human skin. But these were the books that had built my foundation in demon slaying, and I liked having them around. I ran a finger along the spines, feeling the smooth leather of the bindings, until I found the book I was lookin
g for: Russom’s Demonology. Or, more precisely, Russom’s Demoniacal Taxonomy. I pulled it from its place, inhaling its pleasantly musty, old-book smell.

  This book had been the starting point for my training. It was a classic; my copy had been published in 1924, and that was the twelfth edition. Russom’s classified all known demons and described their characteristics. It was comprehensive, but dry as old toast. At first, I could usually get through about half a page before I fell asleep. But thanks to Aunt Mab’s relentless quizzes—at lesson times, at meals, even when we passed in the hallway—I learned its contents. I could still hear her crisp, accented tones: “To what phylum do Drudes belong?” “Name three demons of the order Terrificus. ” I thought I’d never get it. But once I finally did learn the stuff, I never forgot it.

  Now I’d be putting Tina through the same drill. I still had misgivings about teaching her, especially with the Destroyer around, but I had a feeling her lessons wouldn’t last long. Tina, I suspected, was a lot more interested in the latest celebrity gossip than in memorizing the nocturnal habits of wraith demons.

  Shaking my head, I tucked Russom’s in my bag and headed out. I nodded to Clyde as I passed through the lobby and thanked him for getting my front door fixed so fast. He touched his cap, looking pleased. Or at least the death grimace that stretched his lips tight across his pitted, greenish face sort of resembled a smile. At any rate, I was glad I’d acknowledged his effort. People didn’t say “thank you” to zombies very often.

  I dropped off Russom’s at the group home where Tina lived. She wasn’t up yet, so I left it with the house mother, along with a note to read the first twenty-five pages. I checked my watch; it was a little after three. Lucado and I had agreed I’d get to his place around ten to set up. I wanted to get there early, to make sure the guy would actually take the sleeping pill I’d given him. I’d learned the hard way that it was a bad idea to have a client awake and watching while I did my job. I still visited that client in the psych ward every year around Christmas.