California Demon

by Debra Dunbar

  Likewise, I didn’t care if the woman was a veterinarian, I was just happy someone was here who had access to whatever we needed to get Sadie to heal.

  “I brought a portable X-ray machine and from what I see there are no bone breaks, but I’ll know better once I can see the films on something bigger than my phone.” Dr. Mwangi scooted the IV stand closer to the wall, then bent down and ran what looked like a plastic wand over Sadie’s forehead.

  “Did you X-ray Bea’s arm?” I’d been concerned about her as well.

  The doctor nodded. “A hairline fracture. Nothing to worry about, as long as she takes it easy.” She waved a finger at Bea. “No mountain climbing until it heals, you hear?”

  I chuckled to hear her mock-scolding Bea like that.

  “I’m not worried about me, but Sadie. Do you think the bullet might have nicked the bone?” Bea’s brows furrowed. “Will the muscles in her leg be okay? Will they heal right?”

  She wanted to know if Sadie would have a limp the rest of her life. If she’d have chronic pain. If she would be able to even walk properly. I worried about those things too.

  “I really can’t tell if there’s any minor bone damage right now, or how extensive the muscle damage is. At this moment, my goal is to keep infection at bay, to let the wound drain and keep it clean, and to keep her fever from spiking. After she’s stable, and the swelling and fever are reduced, we’ll run some additional diagnostics and if needed, we’ll consider surgery as well as think about what physical therapy she’ll need to regain mobility.”

  Fear washed over me. Surgery. Physical therapy. Regaining mobility. I’d been so focused on Sadie surviving this whole thing that I hadn’t begun to think about what a long road she’d have to recovery, or if she’d be permanently disabled.

  “Let’s see how she is in another few days. I’ve got her on fluids and antibiotics right now, and I treated both wounds and changed the dressings. If the swelling and fever are reduced, then I’ll take more X-rays, and maybe see if I can borrow a portable ultrasound.” The doctor handed Bea a business card. “Call me if her fever spikes above 101, or if you’re getting any more of that yellow pus on the bandages. Change them every four hours. If she doesn’t come around by the morning, or isn’t eating by tomorrow noon, call me. I’m going to try to swing by tomorrow evening to check on her, but I want to know of any changes so I can bring appropriate medicines, okay?”

  How much was all of this going to cost? It was one thing for Marissa to have her cousin ask a nurse to come by and check on Sadie, but this was a level of care that rich people paid for. We didn’t have anything beyond a bunch of food from the neighbors, a case of industrial-sized canned chili, and a case of toilet paper. I owed Bishop. I now owed this doctor.

  We’d never get out of here. We were trapped in LA just like those company-store owned miners I’d read about in high school. Yes, we could skip out on our debts like so many people did, but that wasn’t me. I couldn’t do that. If I owed someone, I paid it, even if it meant I had to sleep in a ditch and eat out of a dumpster to do so.

  “I don’t know how to thank you for this, Doctor Mwangi.” Bea sat down in the little chair she’d placed beside Sadie’s bed. “My children are everything to me.”

  “As they should be.” The doctor smiled and put a hand on Bea’s shoulder. “I’ll be back tomorrow. Please don’t hesitate to call me if she worsens.”

  I motioned for Bea to stay with Sadie and escorted the doctor to the door. “I’m assuming Marissa’s cousin works with you,” I said, not sure how to phrase this. “It means so much to us that you came to help, that we didn’t have to haul Sadie to a hospital in her condition and wait all day for her to be seen. I just want you to know that I’ll pay you. Whatever it takes, whatever the final bill is, I’ll pay you. Anything Sadie needs, please go ahead and do it. MRIs, medicines, equipment, or anything. I’ll find the money and I’ll pay you, I swear it.”

  She stopped by the door and turned to face me, her smile brilliant and her eyes kind. “Eden, it’s been taken care of. There will be no bill for this. Someone once saved my life, and they asked me to come here. I owe them far more than medicines, equipment, and medical care for a gunshot victim. And even if I didn’t, I can’t refuse care to a child. Every day I fight to give kids with cancer just one more good year, or month, or day. I would never refuse to help your little sister.”

  I clamped my lips hard to keep them from trembling and blinked back the tears in my eyes. Why the fuck was I crying all the time lately?

  “Marissa’s cousin has some amazing friends,” I choked out. How much did we owe to our neighbors? Neighbors that I’d barely looked at twice, barely knew their names? Casseroles and neighborhood watch programs were one thing, arranging for this level medical care for free was another.

  Dr. Mwangi’s smile turned sly. “I’ve got no idea who Marissa is, or her cousin. I can’t reveal who arranged for me to provide care for Sadie. Just know it will all be taken care of, including physical therapy when she’s ready. All I can tell you is that you’ve got a guardian angel, Eden Alvaro.”

  I watched as she walked out the door, down the walk, and into her Mini Cooper. I stood by the window as she drove off, all the time wondering what the fuck she’d meant. A guardian angel? Clearly that was metaphorical since the angels who’d fought during the demon wars hadn’t given two shits about any of us.

  Someone arranged for Sadie’s care. Someone had texted me and sent me to Artemis Books and to Alfie. Was it the same someone? It was kinda creepy to think there was a person rich enough to fund private medical care texting me on a stolen phone and knowing things about me that I’d kept private. I could see a guardian angel watching over Bea or Sadie, or even Nevarra, but me? Nobody cared about me besides my immediate foster family and Bags. I’d never had anyone who helped me without an ulterior motive besides Bea and my sisters, and maybe Drew when he’d lived here.

  Drew? No. I hadn’t seen him since he walked out over five years ago. And I doubted that even if he’d managed to strike it rich, he’d bother. No, it wasn’t Drew who’d done all of this for us.

  But if not him, then who?

  Chapter 16

  Telaney had called me back around midnight and told me to meet her at some ungodly hour of the morning in front of a yoga studio a few miles from her home. Traffic was shit at that time of the morning getting out of the Valley, so I was a few minutes late and sadly in need of a cup of coffee when I walked up to her in the parking lot of Sunrise Yoga. At her feet was a dead woman clad in screaming pink tights and a pink tie-dye shirt. All the blood clashed violently with the pink.

  “This isn’t quite what I envisioned when you told me to meet you here.” I pointed to the body.

  “What, you thought I was actually doing a yoga class or something?” She snorted. “I’m too late. Damn it they weren’t supposed to do the hit until after the 7:00 a.m. class.”

  That was the problem with scavenging. If your intel was bad, the bodies would be picked clean before you even got there.

  “Fuckers took her purse and tossed her car.” Telaney pointed to a shiny red Audi a few spaces over. “The only things left were a handful of condoms and this.” She pulled a tube of Sisley lipstick out of her pocket and pulled the cap off. “Number eight, sheer coral. Fifty bucks a pop last time I checked. Want it? Coral’s not my shade.”

  I considered that for a moment, unable to imagine Telaney wearing makeup, let alone coral lipstick. She was probably thinking the same about me. Coral wasn’t my shade either, so I politely declined.

  “Suit yourself.” She shrugged and stuck it back in her pocket.

  “Why is someone targeting a yoga studio?” I asked as we resumed our positions staring down at the body.

  The real question was why was there even a functioning yoga studio here anymore. People were so weird. Demons in the city, violence all around, and there were still enough of them clinging onto a semblance of normal life to keep a yoga studio ope
n.

  “Because it’s where she went every Saturday morning. Kirstin VonMarten.” Telaney’s foot reached out to nudge the body, then withdrew, as if she’d decided the risk of blood-stained tennis shoes wasn’t worth it. “She was married to some big studio dude with connections.”

  I eyed the silky blonde hair and strawberry daiquiri colored nails. “Someone sending the big studio dude a message to get back in line?”

  Telaney shook her head. “Nah. She left him for some other big dude with the Palisades Militia. Her ex felt that was an intolerable blow to his manhood and put a hit out on her.”

  Fucking dick. Two dogs fighting over a bone, only the bone had been a woman with a life, fifty-dollar coral lipstick, and a recent manicure.

  “I’m assuming the Palisades Militia is going to go after Big Studio Dude now?”

  “Yep.” Telaney sighed. “If I can actually get the timing right on that one, I’ll score big. Wanna team up?”

  It was a rare generous offer, one I hated to turn down.

  “I’m smack in the middle of something else right now. Plus, there are a few issues with my license that I need to straighten out first.” I liked Telaney. I didn’t want to be the cause of the tax collectors scrutinizing her doings under a microscope.

  “Next time then.” She gestured toward the body. “Wanna grab the tights?”

  I snorted. “Hell no I don’t.” They were downright hideous and covered in blood. Plus wrestling Lycra tights off a dead body wasn’t something I really wanted to attempt.

  “Actually, I came out here to ask you a few questions, not scavenge on a hit.”

  She took a few steps away, clearly not interested in the hot pink tights either. “You said you had something important you needed to ask me? Is there a job you need my help on? Is it about the accounting day hit Thursday where everything worth salvaging went up in a giant fireball?”

  “It’s kinda personal. Can we go somewhere more private?” I wasn’t about to dredge up memories or out the woman’s past right here in the open like this.

  She eyed me with curiosity. “Sure. I only live a few blocks away. We can walk.”

  I left my bike, figuring it would be safe in a yoga studio filled with luxury cars, and followed Telaney. Three blocks later we were walking up to a house with freshly planted petunias blooming cheerfully beside the porch.

  Outside of the occasional big job, Telaney liked to work close to home. She’d once told me that there might not be anyone waiting with the lights on for her, but she still tried to be in the door with her bra off and her feet up before nightfall.

  Two years ago, Silver Lake was a hipster paradise. There’d been a coffee shop on every block. The walls and pavement had been covered with graffiti art that had nothing to do with gangs or tagging. The plentiful stores sold local crafts and weird shit like wire pyramids that were supposed to preserve food. Nearly every restaurant had served Asian fusion, and the bars proudly featured local indie bands and solo acts. Modern architecture abounded, and the namesake reservoir was ringed by a lovely trail that had been filled with fit joggers and residents walking their dogs as they sipped their double-shot dirty chai lattes.

  The majority of the hipsters had defaulted on their mortgages and fled east. The banks that now owned these homes were stuck. No one was going to pay the exorbitant, inflated prices they’d loaned out for these little tiny homes, so they either wrote off the huge loss, or were still carrying the dead weight on their books, hoping no one noticed and their stock didn’t plummet.

  With three quarters of the homes vacant and in foreclosure, looted and abandoned, others moved in. Silver Lake was now a squatters’ rights neighborhood. If you lived there, it was yours—just make sure you locked everything up tight, or you were liable to come home and find someone else squatting in your “acquired” home.

  Telaney’s home was a square, one-story cottage-style block house whose stucco finish had been painted a light mint-green. White wrought iron posts supported the slightly sagging porch roof, and a huge picture window took up the entire left half of the house. It had to have been all of eight hundred square feet at most, and two years ago it would have sold for just under a million dollars. If the attempts at landscaping didn’t clue me in as to how much Telaney cared about her home, the interior did. This wasn’t just some convenient rent-free flop house, it was her home.

  Telaney had made serious inroads in repairing the damage looters had done. Holes in the walls were patched, and sheets of drywall that must have been damaged beyond repair had been replaced. The oak floors had been recently sanded and polished. A few items of furniture looked new, and others had nice slipcovers hiding any damage. A cut-glass vase full of tulips sat on the dining room table.

  “Don’t mind the mess.” She waved at the dove gray walls that were dotted with spackle and primer. “I need to give it all another good sanding before I paint.”

  I sat where she indicated and admired her home, wondering how much work she’d needed to put into it to make it livable, and if there were any other decent homes in Silver Lake that were unoccupied. For a moment I had a little daydream of my own place with a comfy sectional sofa, a bedroom big enough for a king-sized bed, a bright sunny kitchen with stainless steel appliances, a fenced in backyard with a little pond. Maybe I’d have a small dog, or a cat, and I’d have Bea and the girls over twice a week for dinner. If I had a date, I could bring them home afterward. We’d drink champagne and get busy, scattering clothing all over the house as we disrobed. We’d fuck on the sectional, on the kitchen counters, against the patio door, then end up in my huge bed, tangled in sheets with legs entwined. In the morning we’d walk around naked and drink coffee, maybe screwing in the shower before I kicked him out so I could get to work.

  Why was that date in my mental wanderings Bishop? The idea of him naked in bed with me had me feeling rather breathless.

  It was a ridiculous fantasy. He’d thought I was hot, but not that hot. And he wasn’t my type. And as far as the house went, there would be no sense in me spending a lot of time wrestling a foreclosure away from a bunch of squatters and fixing it up when Bea, the girls, and I were planning on getting out of here and across the border as soon as possible.

  Telaney came back in with two mugs of coffee and a striped glass bowl full of chips. She put the bowl on the table, handed me one of the mugs. It said “Not Today, Satan” in bright red letters on the glossy white finish.

  Sitting down in a chair across from me, Telaney grabbed one of the chips. “So what’s up? Does this have something to do with your license? I heard some bitch set you up and you’re in trouble.”

  “Tangentially.” Wow, I finally got to use that word. I took a sip of the coffee, then went on. “I was at that accounting day job when the Fixers came looking for me. They took my fourteen-year-old sister and sold her to the Disciples.”

  Telaney sucked in a breath. “Oh Eden, I’m so sorry. What can I do to help?”

  The offer surprised me—especially because I could tell she meant it. Hopefully what I said next didn’t have her rescinding that offer and kicking me out of her home.

  “Eight years ago, you were rescued from human traffickers. I need to know everything and anything about that group.”

  Her hand shook as she put her mug down on the table. That look of shock and betrayal in her eyes felt like claws in my stomach. I thought we were friends, the look said.

  Before she could deny it all I leaned forward. “It was the Disciples then, and it’s the Disciples now. That same woman, Desiree, still runs the operation. They have Nevarra. She’s only fourteen. I found your picture from the raid eight years ago completely by chance. No one else knows, and no one else is going to know whether you say anything to me or not, but I’m begging you to help me. I’m begging you to help me save Nevarra.”

  Telaney sucked in a ragged breath, her eyes haunted and focused on something about six miles past my left shoulder. I watched and waited, hoping after she dealt w
ith the shock of having the bandage ripped off an old wound, she wouldn’t throw me out on my ass.

  “I try not to think about that time.” She picked up the mug, then put it down again. “I try to pretend it was all a bad dream. My mom searched for me. The neighborhood helped put up fliers. They had vigils. After six months, she gave up hope of finding me alive, but still hounded the police to keep searching for my body.”

  “They had you for six months?” That couldn’t have been right. She would have been sold by then, but the police raid found her with the other kids, as if she had been newly kidnapped.

  “I was older than most of them—the same age as your sister. Fourteen-year-olds can fetch a good price if they’re pretty and they look young and innocent.” Telaney’s laugh was bitter. “I’m not pretty now, and I wasn’t then. I didn’t have the right look to appeal to the pedophiles who are eager to throw a ton of cash for someone to satisfy their sick fantasies. So, I became a video girl.”

  Cold skittered down my spine. Juke had mentioned that some girls were used for pay-per-view videos. Raped on camera, and broadcast for anyone with a credit card to see. I wanted to tell her to stop, to let her return all these memories into a locked box in the back of her mind, but I couldn’t.

  Nevarra.

  “I’m so sorry, Telaney.”

  She waved my sympathy away. “I kept my mouth shut when the cops came. I was in shock. For years I kept thinking I was dreaming and that I’d wake back up in that hellhole. It wasn’t just the trauma though. I was fourteen. My mama was all I had. If I had given the police names and locations, it would have gotten out, and I knew they wouldn’t have been able to keep us safe. So instead of naming names, I let my emotions burst through the dam and flood me. All the police knew was that I’d been raped, and that they’d kept me there for six months. I saw a dozen kids come through that room and leave when they’d been sold—a dozen that they never found.”