Speak of the Devil

by Jena Gregoire

  Dez slowly opened her eyes. Instead of the beige tile of her bathroom walls, she saw rocks. Solid rock wall. Her eyes darted back and forth in confusion. She glanced down and was relieved to find that she wasn't naked. There was no sign of anyone around her, but when she strained to listen, she could hear faint mumbles and whispers. At first, she couldn't discern which direction they were coming from but, suddenly, as if the disembodied voices were having an argument, the whispers became louder. She still couldn't make out a single word they were saying, but the raised voices betrayed them, telling her which direction to move.

  She checked around herself one more time to confirm she was alone, then tiptoed as quietly as she could toward the mumbles. She drew closer to the voices, but still, their sources didn't come into view. She edged further and further still, until she was standing in the center of a great cavern made of stone. The voices were finally clear, but their possessors still completely invisible. Dez was about to call out to them when she started making sense of the conversation and thought better of it.

  "We haven't much time," the first voice said in an agitated, urgent tone.

  "We're fine, sister," a second voice said. It was obvious this was not the first time they'd had this discussion. The second voice sounded exhausted, as though talking to a pestering child.

  "The weapon is ready,” added a third voice. “This is the perfect time to use it for our will. We can finally right what has gone horribly wrong."

  "Not yet," replied the second. "The weapon may be ready, but we are not. It is of no use to us if we cannot harness its power."

  "We should have more than enough by now, sister."

  "And if we do not, we will have wasted our single opportunity. I am not willing to take the risk that all our work will have been for nothing. We are not ready, and that is final. I will not hear of it again. Am I understood?"

  "Yes, sister," the first voice answered, cowed.

  "Good. Now, go prepare. We have much work to do. It is almost sunset, and we need to be in position."

  "Yes, sister," two voices said in unison. And then there was silence.

  Dez awoke, still in her bathtub, still surround by beige tile walls. She blinked her eyes, trying to get her bearings. She had no idea how long she had been asleep. Her bathroom didn't have any windows, so she couldn't go by the lighting outside. She stood up from the bath water, which was barely warm, her only indication she had been there much longer than she had intended. Dez grabbed a towel from the hook on the wall and wrapped herself up in its welcoming warmth.

  She strolled out to her living room and retrieved her cell phone from the left pocket of her jacket. She checked the clock and saw she had only been in the tub a little over an hour. Given that timeframe, what she heard could have been only a dream, but she figured it would be best not to assume anything. She tossed the phone down on the couch and went to her room to get dressed.

  Twenty minutes later, she was on the road to Vegas' house. She kept going over the dream in her head. If it had been the witches from the desert, Mommy Dearest hadn't been totally straight with her, and maybe Natalia was right to have questioned the mysterious weapon. If it had really been her and the other witches, she needed to figure out what they meant when they said the weapon was ready.

  Ready how? And what was this weapon? What is it used for? What do they intend to use it for?

  There were so many unanswered questions, and Dez didn't have a starting point to begin research. If what she experienced wasn't a dream, they were up to something. What she needed was someone who was already in the ether to try to confirm her suspicion. She needed to talk to Lucas.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Dez

  Dez sat across from Vegas on his living room floor. They had moved his couch and coffee table back, and laid a blanket out directly in front of his blazing fireplace. The heat radiating from the flames made Dez want to take a nap, but that kind of relaxed state was best if they wanted to be successful at contacting Lucas and Natalia.

  "Ready?" She had told Vegas the whole story when she arrived, and he agreed they needed to have eyes on the other side. Since Dez couldn't possibly do it herself, he suggested wasting no time.

  ''As ready as I'll ever be," she answered. She didn't know why she was nervous. The more she used this ability, the easier it would come to her if she ever needed it in a bind. She just hoped it wasn't yet another contributing factor to her possibly losing her humanity.

  "Alright, just like before," he said as he took her hands in his. "Close your eyes and take long deep breaths." She did as he instructed, and after what seemed like only a few moments, she was in the blackness of the ether. A moment later, Vegas appeared at her side.

  "Lucas? Natalia?" she called out. "Are you guys here?" She only got deafening silence in response. "Shit." She didn't mean for it to come out sounding so defeated, but she had no clue how to summon them, if that was even what she had to do.

  "They'll be here." She had no idea why Vegas was so confident in his assertion, but he was, so she tried again.

  "Lucas, if you're there, we really need to talk to you."

  ''I'm here." His voice came in a whisper from right behind them, and they spun simultaneously to see both Lucas and Natalia grinning ear to ear.

  "Dude," Dez said, "you're a dick."

  "I have to find my entertainment where I can. I mean, have you seen this place?"

  "Well, I've got something for you to occupy your time with. I need you to try to track down the witches again."

  "We already tried that and came up snake eyes, love."

  ''I know," she said, "but something may have happened tonight, and we need to know if it's real."

  "What happened?" Natalia asked.

  ''I took a bath when I got home tonight. I dozed off, and I either had a dream or I somehow got to the witches through the ether." She recounted what she heard, or possibly dreamed, and waited for their thoughts.

  "So, you were naked then?" Lucas asked. Natalia elbowed him in the ribs.

  "Focus, Tremayne."

  "Oh, I really like her," Dez said to Vegas. Then to Lucas, she continued, "If it was real, and I somehow spied on them from this place, it wasn't intentional. I wasn't looking for them. I wasn't even thinking about them. I was thinking about how much winter sucks in New York, and how I need to buy a vacation home in the desert. The desert is the only connection I can think of. You said it yourself. When you first heard about these bitches, all of the stories sort of petered out when you get to the desert. They are there, and if I really heard what I think I heard, we need more info. Can you do this for me? Pretty please?"

  "Of course, just be prepared for that fact that we may not be able to locate them. We will try, though. It's not like we have other pressing business to attend to."

  "It's no problem at all," Natalia added. ''I think it's a good idea for you to look into the whole weapon situation either way."

  "I agree," Vegas added. "We probably shouldn't have taken it so lightly, and it may still turn out to be nothing, but looking into it will give us some peace of mind."

  "Should we plan on connecting again in about a week?" Dez asked.

  "We don’t really have a concept of time on this side," Lucas explained, "but all you need to do is call to us and we'll be here."

  "Okay, we'll reach out to you soon."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dez

  Dez and Vegas Walked through the front door of Onyx just in time to hear a band auditioning for a Friday night booking. Judging by the way he was rubbing his temples, eyes closed, Jack was less than impressed with the way they sounded.

  "That's enough!" Dez yelled above the music, waving her arms to get the attention of the men trying to pass themselves off as a rock band. They caught sight of her and stopped playing. "Enough. My hangover can't handle that noise. We'll call if we're interested." As the band packed up their instruments, Dez and Vegas each took a seat at the table with a relieved looking Jack.r />
  "Rough night, huh?"

  "Nope," Dez replied, "I just couldn't listen to one more second of that shit. It sounded like a goose being raped by an elephant. They are not playing in my bar."

  "Colorful," Jack said with a laugh.

  "Have you had any good auditions, or have they all sounded like that?"

  "That's more or less what they've all sounded like. As it turns out, there are a lot of bad bands in New York."

  "Keep looking," Vegas said. "You're bound to come across someone good."

  "Here's hoping," he replied. "What are you two lovebirds up to tonight?"

  "Not much," Dez answered. "We thought we'd hang out here for a while. Maybe grab a bite to eat. Not sure beyond that. Why? Was tonight the night you planned on burning the place to the ground?"

  "How'd you guess?"

  "I have a sixth sense for these things." Dez looked up at the clock and noticed it was close to the time everyone normally started to come in. "I'm going to go prep the bar for Danni. Vegas, you want to come pretend to be my pack mule?"

  "You mean make out in the store room?" he joked.

  "You know me so well," she said as she stood from her chair. "Jack. Carry on."

  As she walked away, he was laughing to himself, shaking his head. Getting Danni's bar ready took less than fifteen minutes. When they were finished, the staff started rolling in, including an overly-excited Danni.

  "Deziree Davanzati, where have you been?!" she squealed as she ran over and tackled Dez with a hug.

  "Oh, sweetie,'' she replied, ''that is a really long story and I still don't know how it ends. Someday, I will explain it all, but today is not that day. I want to have fun tonight."

  "Okay," Danni said, letting Dez go. "But it better be good. I'm talking drunken puppet show and male strippers."

  "You got it."

  "You're good, though?"

  "Um..." Dez hesitated. "Yeah, I'm alright."

  "Way to sell it. No, really. I totally bought that." Danni leaned over the bar and dropped her purse on the floor, then turned to Dez with her hands on her hips, eyebrows raised, and waiting for an explanation.

  "Things are good. Well, I think they're good." Dez knew she sounded like she was trying to convince herself. She looked over at Vegas. He was talking with Jack about something to do with the bar. Jack said something Dez couldn't hear, and Vegas smiled. The instant it reached his eyes, she had her answer. "No, things are definitely good."

  "You two apparently got past the will they or won't they bullshit," she stated as she walked behind the bar. Her attitude about the situation told Dez the shift between her and the vampire was obvious. "So?" Danni urged, leaning forward over the bar. "Dish. Is he amazing in the sack or what?"

  Dez smirked at her friend, who was now grinning like a fool as she bounced up and down waiting for an answer. Dez sat on the black leather bar stool directly in front of Danni, leaned in, and whispered, "You have no idea."

  "I knew it!" she nearly yelled in response.

  "Shh!" Dez had a hard time trying to quiet the woman without laughing.

  "Sorry," Danni said with a small giggle. ''I knew it," she amended in a hushed tone. "He has the walk."

  "The walk? What walk?"

  "It's the way he carries himself. The kind of confidence that tells a woman he could do dirty, unspeakable things to her all night long and leave her begging for more as the sun is coming up. A real man." Dez watched Vegas as Danni spoke, a movie reel of the night in the desert on the trunk of her car playing through her mind. "You, my friend, are a lucky woman. There aren't many of those left. Just a lot of boys thinking they're God’s gift to the vaginas of the world, when in reality, most of them have the sexual prowess of a table lamp." Dez turned back to her friend and smiled, pondering that thought for a moment.

  "You're not wrong," she said with a sly smile.

  "Not wrong about what?" Vegas asked. He walked up behind Dez and put a hand on her shoulder, massaging lightly. As those images flashed through her mind, his touch sent a spike of heat through her body, and she had to remind herself where they were.

  "Oh, nothing," she replied, slinking out of the chair to some distance between her body and his hands. If they were going to make it through a night of normal people socialization with their clothes on, he couldn't be touching her that way. "Just girl stuff." Not a very stealthy covering of her tracks but she really didn't care. She planned on showing him later. "Hey, Jack!" she called out, a change in subject desperately needed.

  "Yeah, boss?" He was headed toward the kitchen, and she wanted to catch him in time.

  "That coffee maker out there still work?"

  "It would if it were still there," he replied as he disappeared through the swinging doors.

  "What?" she ask, her attention snapping to Danni for answers. "No coffee? I'm gone for a little while and you guys murder Mr. Coffee?"

  "Not murdered," she replied. "Just traded him in for a hotter, younger model." She pointed with her thumb to the far end of the bar where a single serving coffee machine sat. "What flavor do you want?" She set a box on the mahogany bar top in front of Dez. "Pick your poison and I will make you a cup."

  "Oh, fancy." Dez fished through the box until she found a butter toffee flavored K-Cup. ''I'll try this one."

  "Good choice. Just don’t add any sugar. Too sweet."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Michael

  He watched with a sense of contentment as Dez laughed with her friend and did something as mundane as choose a flavor of coffee. He didn't think things would ever be completely normal again, but the comfort of familiarity was a good start. They were far from the finish line, but for at least one night, they could enjoy the slow, easy pace of the normal life. They would never have anything close to an uneventful life, but spending an evening with friends without the preoccupation of hunting demons was definitely a necessity for them at the moment. Part of him was a little restless, but he was determined to kick back and have a good night. Just then, he had an idea.

  ''When is the rest of the staff due to show?" He posed the question to Jack as he was walking past to retrieve his portfolio from the table he had been occupying at the edge of the dance floor when then first arrived. Jack quickly glanced down at his watch.

  "Any second now, but thanks to you and Dez, there really isn't anything for them to do."

  "That's okay," Michael replied. "I’ve got something to occupy us until the crowd rolls in. I'll be right back. I'm going to slip outside to make a couple of phone calls." Michael looked over at Dez, who was in the middle of an animated conversation with Danni. "If those two ever stop talking long enough to take a breath, can you let Dez know I'll be right back?"

  "Sure thing, boss."

  Michael walked to the stairway at the back of the bar which led up to the roof. On his way, he dug out his cell phone and dialed the number he was looking for.

  "China Gold Cafe," greeted a man on the other end.

  "Good evening," Michael greeted in return. "I'd like to place a delivery order." He recited a long order, enough to feed about twenty people. The man gave him the total, Michael thanked him, then hung up. He dialed another number. It only rang twice before someone answered.

  ''Michael!" the vampire on the other end answered happily. "How are you, friend?"

  "I'm good," he answered truthfully. "Great, actually. We're back in town, and I was wondering if you're busy tonight."

  "We?"

  "Me and Dez."

  "Oh, shit. Dez is back?"

  "She is," Michael replied. "We got in a few days ago. We've been laying low, looking into a few things. So? Are you busy tonight?"

  "I can shift some things in my schedule. What do you need?"

  "Meet me at Onyx as soon as possible."

  "You got trouble?"

  "Nope," Michael replied. It felt good to be able to answer that question in the negative for once. "No weapons needed. Feel free to bring your people, both human and vampire, and tel
l everyone to bring their appetites."

  They said their goodbyes, and he headed back down to the bar. As he stepped out of the stairwell into the main room of Onyx, he noticed the nighttime lights had been turned on, bathing the room in a red and purple glow. He found Dez sitting at a table by herself, sipping a pink drink which he assumed was her usual concoction of coconut rum, pineapple juice, and cranberry juice. He sat down in the chair opposite her and she smiled, the warm gesture reaching her eyes.

  “You hungry yet?”

  “I am!” she exclaimed. “I was just thinking about where to go to grab something to eat.”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” he replied quickly.

  He stood and walked away without further explanation. He let out a whistle across the expanse of the large room to get Jack’s attention, waving him over. Together, the rearranged a few tables into one long table at the furthest part of the room from the stage. He figured if they tucked themselves away in the back corner, they wouldn’t bother the patrons trying to enjoy their evening.

  “I’ve got another idea,” Jack said, turning to head toward the storage room. Michael knew they kept cases of alcohol in there, but he wasn’t sure what else Jack could be retrieving. The man reemerged from the darkness of the storage room carrying a few rope stands and several sections of dark purple velvet rope. Had it been anyone else, they wouldn’t have been able to carry that kind of weight, but the weretiger barely seemed to notice.

  “We can just rope it off, like our very own little VIP section.” He set the poles down in spaced intervals several feet away from the chair backs, then started hooking the velvet ropes to the metal tops.

  “What are you two doing?” Dez asked as she approached them.

  “I ordered dinner and invited some friends down,” he answered.

  "Who's coming to dinner?" No sooner did she ask the question than someone was pounding on the front door. Michael smiled and nodded his head toward the door.