by Jana Oliver
Riley thought about that as they wove their way through the rusty bikes and the scooters. “I want to do this, Dad.” She caught his hand and squeezed it. “I don’t want to work behind a counter somewhere. That’s just not me.”
A resigned expression settled on his face. “I’d hoped you’d change your mind, but tonight I knew it wasn’t going to happen. You stood up to Harper, and that takes guts.”
“Why is he such a dick?” she asked. “He acts like he hates everyone.”
“He’s had a lot of losses. Everyone has a breaking point, Riley. He hit his a long time ago.”
“But you didn’t.”
He smiled and squeezed her hand. “Because of you.”
Weaving his arm around her waist, they walked up the stairs in tandem.
Someday he’ll be home all the time. Then it’ll be good again.
FIVE
Once her dad had departed, Riley spent a long time in the shower. To her relief it took most of the green off of her skin. With some creative makeup application she might pass for human by tomorrow night. She hoped none of her classmates had seen the video. Besides Peter, that is.
Right. Dream on.
Every evening she tidied the apartment. Tonight wasn’t any different, despite the fact that she felt she’d been body-slammed by a sumo wrestler. Cleaning never took very long as the place was Barbie-sized, two hotel rooms joined together, the walls an industrial beige. The extra bathroom had been divided in half and converted into a closet. There were three rooms total—a twelve-by-fifteen-foot living room and kitchenette, a bathroom, and a tiny bedroom. A decrepit wall unit offered minimal heat and air-conditioning. They didn’t run it very often because it was too noisy.
When I’m a journeyman, Riley mused, we’ll move into a nice apartment. She knew what it would look like—she’d found a picture in a magazine—all wood floors and big windows and gleaming stainless steel appliances. The picture was stuck to the ancient refrigerator. Her dad kidded her about it, but he hadn’t taken it down. He had dreams, too.
Riley plopped onto the couch and dialed her friend. Peter answered on the first ring.
“Hey, Riley,” he said. There was the sound of rustling paper. “Our term papers are due tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I’ll work on it tonight.”
“Mine’s done,” he boasted. She heard a slurping sound like he’d taken a drink through a long straw. “I tore apart the South’s assertion that slavery was necessary for their survival.”
Peter wasn’t really a nerd, but he acted like one. He’d been that way since they’d met in fourth grade. With his round face, mouse-brown hair, and glasses he looked like an accountant or a computer programmer.
“Sounds deep,” she said. “You think Mr. Houston’s going to like it?”
“It’s solid. He’ll accept it.”
No way. Houston had a Dixie accent as thick as Atlanta’s smog and was always talking about the “War of Northern Aggression.” Peter’s paper would not be met with applause, or an A.
“What’s yours about?” her friend asked, followed by more slurping. It made her thirsty, so she chugged down the last of the hot chocolate before answering.
“General Sherman and why he was actually a terrorist.”
There was a sharp intake of breath across the line. “Wow! I would never have made that connection.”
“Thought I’d try it on for size. Can I use your printer tomorrow?” she quizzed.
“Sure. I’m getting drilled and filled in the morning, so make it after four. Maybe the ghouls will be out.” The ghouls were the twins, Peter’s younger brothers. He’d called them that ever since they’d started to walk. Something to do with the fact that they followed him everywhere, even into the bathroom.
“Dentist in the morning. Got it,” she said, grinning.
“Better yet, send the file over tonight and I’ll have it all ready for you.”
“Cool! Okay, see you tomorrow night, Peter.”
“Later, Riley.”
She settled at the card table that served as a makeshift desk and pulled up the computer file entitled “General Sherman—War Hero or Domestic Terrorist?” Typing proved harder than she’d expected—the bite on her right palm wasn’t cooperating. Then the N key popped off the keyboard and flew toward the stained carpet.
“Ah, come on!” she groused. “Why does everything fight me?”
Digging under the card table yielded the key, which she carefully reattached, leaving a trail of n’s across the screen. At least the gold star she’d stuck on it made it easier to find when the thing went AWOL.
It was times like this she longed for the computer system she’d owned before the condo fire—a Mac with speakers and everything. Now all she had was leftovers because the insurance company only paid enough for the condo mortgage and to buy some secondhand furniture but not a new computer.
Her dad had found this one at a secondhand store, and they’d scavenged the keyboard from the trash bin behind a sub shop. It’d taken a lot of time to clean it up, and it still smelled like rubbing alcohol and onions.
A scratching sound came at the door. She ignored it, studying Sherman’s bio. He’d warmed up with the Seminoles and then moved on to scorching large parts of the South, including Atlanta in 1864.
“Pyromaniac. I’m just saying.”
An e-mail from Peter popped up. Check this out! the subject line read.
It was a hyperlink to another one of her videos. There were over a hundred thousand hits on it already.
“I’m so viral,” she said, groaning. No way she was going to watch it. She clicked the page closed and went back to Sherman.
More scratching. That had to be Max, Mrs. Litinsky’s Maine Coon. He was a giant of a cat with a patchwork of thick white, brown, gray, and black fur. His sensitive feline nose would be telling him there were demons inside the apartment.
Opening the door, she found the cat digging at the threshold. Riley knelt, petted him, and she got a throaty purr in response. Some nights she let him in and he’d keep her company. But not tonight.
“Sorry. You’ll tear the kitchen apart trying to get to our stash,” she said. Not that the three Biblios currently housed inside the cupboard with the canned green beans actually constituted a stash. Tomorrow her dad would make a run to one of the local demon traffickers, who would relieve him of the fiends in exchange for cold hard cash. Then Max would be welcome in the apartment once more.
Riley gave the cat a few more cuddles, shooed him out, and shut the door, making sure to lock it. Sinking into the creaky office chair, she yawned and cautiously stretched. Something popped in her back and the ache diminished. Considering how hard she’d landed on the library floor it was amazing she wasn’t one solid bruise.
When she put her hands on the keyboard the N was missing again. She made a quick check of the floor. Not there.
“Now that’s weird.”
Another check of the floor turned up a rusty paperclip and an expired roach, but nothing else. Riley leaned back in the chair, trying to work out what was going on. The missing key’s gold star gave her a clue.
Can’t be. To test her theory, she checked the top of the battered dresser in the bedroom. The silver seashell earring she’d found in Centennial Park last summer was missing, too.
Riley grinned. No other explanation—there was a demon in their apartment. Maybe she could redeem herself by catching it. Besides, the fiend was worth seventy-five bucks, and that would take them one step closer to their pizza and movie night.
She returned to the front room, retrieved her Trappers Manual from the bookshelf and thumbed to the second section, the one that dealt with types of Hellspawn. Running a greenish finger down the list she found:
Klepto-Fiend (Magpie, Hell’s Cat Burglar): Three inches tall, light brown skin, pointed ears. Often seen in ninja garb toting a small bag of loot. Cannot resist jewelry, coins, or shiny objects.
Should be easy to trap. Or not. At least these
fiends didn’t curse or pee on you. Their demonic activity was confined to stealing bright and shiny stuff.
But why is it in our apartment? That would seem to be the last place a demon would want to be discovered.
Riley slumped on the worn burgundy couch and conducted a visual search around the tiny room. The demon could be anywhere, though most likely it would be hunting something shiny. Nothing near the makeshift bookshelf they’d constructed from salvaged two-by-fours. Nothing near the family pictures on the top shelf of the bookshelf. One of those frames had sparkles on it, but it was probably too big for the tiny fiend to cart off.
“Where are you?” she called out in a singsong voice. Nothing moved. Well, she was a trapper, after all. Flipping farther into the manual she found the section that told her how to trap a Magpie. She scanned the text to refresh her memory. She really had to find him; it’d be hard to finish the paper without the full keyboard, especially since the name of the term paper’s subject ended in an n.
A sharp hiss came from the hallway. Then a growl. Had the demon slipped out of the apartment? Riley grabbed a sippy cup from the cupboard, one her father had specially prepared with a layer of glitter on the bottom. When she slowly edged open the door, she found Max a few feet down the hallway, his fur on end and his back humped. Every whisker bristled at attention.
The reason crouched near the floor register. It was one of Hell’s cat burglars. Similar in stature to a Biblio-Fiend, the Magpie was the same size with humanlike hands and a forked tail. Its eyes were red, but not that Hellfire bright that bothered her. Just like the manual said, this one was clad in ninja black, and even wore boots. It was furiously trying to jam its canvas bag through the fins of the floor register. Even Riley could tell it wasn’t going to fit. The demon wouldn’t leave the bag behind; the “pretties” were everything to them.
Max took another step closer, his growl deepening now. If this had been a Biblio, the demon would have slammed a fist into the cat’s nose or peed in his eyes then made a run for it. Magpies survived by stealth. Unfortunately, this one had nowhere to run.
“Max?” The cat’s back rumpled in irritation at her voice, but he didn’t break his vigil. “You can’t eat it. It’ll make you sick. All your hair will fall out, then you’ll go into convulsions. Dead cat, get it?”
The feline growled in response. It was matched in volume by the demon’s warning hiss.
“Come on, Max. Let it be,” she coaxed.
In exaggerated slow motion, he took one more step toward the Magpie.
A door slammed on a floor below and Max jumped at the sound, momentarily losing eye contact. It gave Riley the diversion she needed. With a quick sweep of her foot she shoved the hunter down the hall. Flailing her arms in the air, she shouted nonsense at him. The feline took off.
When she turned back, the demon was still trying to cram its loot through the vent. She knelt, tipped open the cup, and dropped a few pieces of glitter on the floor. Magpies were wired for bling. All she needed to do was provide the bait.
The demon stopped its frantic attempts to escape. It stared at the glitter and began to pant, fingers twitching in anticipation. More twitching. Faster than she’d expected, it zoomed up to the sparkles, despite the danger. She snagged the fiend right before it picked up the last one, and dropped the Magpie into the cup. Instead of a flood of swear words or the offer of a favor, she heard a long, tortured sigh. Then it sat, sorting the glitter into piles by color.
Now she’d seen everything. She screwed on the lid, grabbed up its bag, and hurried into the apartment before Max had the courage to return.
Before getting back to work on her assignment, Riley sorted through the demon’s horde, reclaiming the earring and the N key. It rapped on the side of the container and pointed at the bag with a concerned expression. She understood. It would be like someone making off with her favorite lip gloss.
“Okay, Flash, here you go.” Unscrewing the top, she carefully dropped the bag inside, then tightly resealed the lid. The Magpie promptly pulled out a shiny penny and someone’s tie tack. Those earned her a grateful demon smile. It curled around the treasure and fell asleep.
Pleased at how things turned out, she sent a text to her dad.
I caught a Magpie in our apartment! Score one for me!
Riley waited, but there was no response. Probably busy trapping that Three. When she finally shut down the computer a couple of hours later, there was still no reply.
“You go, Dad! Movie night, here we come.”
SIX
Whistling “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” louder than was necessary, Beck waited in the middle of Alabama Street as night settled in for keeps. The steel pipe stuck in the back of his jeans was uncomfortable, but he left it in place. If they were lucky it wouldn’t be there much longer. To his right, Paul was hidden behind a dumpster, armed and waiting for their prey.
Beck had to admit that Five Points was one of his favorite trapping locations. “Demon Central,” as the trappers called it, perfect for Grade Three fiends. Threes loved the tangled warren of gutted buildings, seemingly bottomless holes, busted concrete, and overflowing dumpsters. Those few buildings still intact had metal gates over every window and door to keep Hell’s evil outside. It was the only part of the city that had much metal left. It was too dangerous to try to scavenge down here, though some folks tried. All of them regretted it.
Any exposed concrete sported long claw marks starting at four feet up, the way Threes marked their territory. That and stinking piles of demon crap acidic enough to melt asphalt. At least the cold weather had cut the stench a notch.
Beck was summoning their prey on a couple of levels. Threes detested Christmas music and couldn’t resist rabbit entrails, especially if they were a bit ripe. They had one-track minds: If something moved, they ate it. If it didn’t move, they ate it anyway just to be safe. While on the hunt, which was pretty much once it got dark, they ripped apart anything that got in their way. They’d grown so ferocious that most trappers had a buddy along as backup.
Beck caught movement near one of the countless holes that littered the street. It was a skulking rat, probably the only one within a square mile. That was a side benefit of a Three infestation: The rat and pigeon population dropped dramatically.
Even though he was growing impatient, Beck forced himself to hold his position. Pulling off his Braves cap, he smoothed his hair. It was getting shaggy by his standards, but he didn’t have the time for a haircut. The last two girlfriends had liked the look. Not that they hung around long, but there was always another one giving him the eye.
As Beck waited he swore he could feel the ground settling all around him. Built on top of what used to be street-level Atlanta in the nineteenth century, this part of town had been sinking for the last decade. Holes developed over the old steam vaults. Then the holes got bigger. And bigger. The last cave-in had been near the Five Points MARTA Station. With the city bankrupt, the holes kept enlarging. Only the demons found that a blessing.
Beck shifted his eyes sideways toward the battle-scarred dumpster fifteen feet away. Even in the dim glow of a single streetlight he could see the serene expression Paul wore when on the hunt. How he managed that, Beck never understood. It was probably why his partner had outlived his encounter with an Archfiend.
I sure as hell won’t.
There was a sound near one of the holes as a Three climbed out of whatever lay below.
“Demon at one o’clock,” Beck murmured. Paul nodded, holding his silence.
The beast should have been solid black, but this one had big white splotches like a lethal Holstein cow. Repeated applications of Holy Water did that to a Three, like a bad bleach job. This one had seen a lot of it and was still going strong.
The slavering beast hunkered down next to the bunny bait and gobbled the offering in one gulp. Then it looked up, those laser-red eyes scanning the terrain for the real bait—Beck.
“Trappperrr,” it hissed.
&nb
sp; “Deemonn,” Beck hissed back. He waited for it to charge. They always charged, howling and waving those scimitar claws. Instead the thing’s paw closed around a beer bottle, arming itself. That was a new tactic. Usually they leapt on you and kept slicing until they had you on the ground.
“Incomin’!” Beck taunted. He ducked as the bottle flew by him. “Ha! Ya couldn’t hit yer own fat-assed mama with a throw like that!”
“Chew yourrr bones!” the demon cried, waving its furry arms above its head like a demented orangutan.
Beck mirrored the gesture and then sneered. “Yeah, yeah. If yer the best Hell can do, no wonder yer boss got kicked outta Heaven.”
“Name not He!” the demon shouted, cringing.
That was a sore point for those who were on Lucifer’s leash: They didn’t like to be reminded. Beck got an idea.
“Let’s see now, what’s his name?” He tapped his forehead in thought. “Yeah, that’s it!” He grinned and then started chanting, “Give me an L. L! Give me a U. U! Give me a C…”
Enraged, the demon sent a volley of beer bottles his way. Only one came close. Beck executed an exaggerated yawn, which only infuriated the fiend further. He could sense Paul’s disapproval from the direction of the dumpster. The master was never happy when his former student showboated, as he called it.
But damn, this is fun.
The telltale scrape of claws across the broken pavement brought Beck back to reality. He kept his eyes on the thing as it scrambled toward him. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. Sweat broke out on his forehead. Beck remembered how those claws felt when they’d dug into him. The smell of rancid breath in his face. The click of incisors as they went for his neck.
“Now!” he shouted, brandishing the steel pipe.
A clear globe arced through the air and impacted directly on top of the creature’s head. Glass shattered and Holy Water drenched the fiend’s fur-covered face. The demon began to dance around like it was on fire, swiping at unseen enemies. Then it crumpled.
Paul stepped out from behind the dumpster, studying the monster from a respectful distance, another sphere already in hand.
