California Demon

by Debra Dunbar

God. There was nothing I could say to that, no words to express my sorrow.

  Telaney swiped a hand across her eyes. “I knew there wasn’t anything I could do to help those other kids—hell, I was just a kid myself. I buried it all, believing that if the Disciples started up with that side of their business again, they’d just stick with prostitutes and not risk dealing in kids.”

  She looked up toward the ceiling, took a deep breath, and leaned back in her chair before she lowered her gaze to meet mine. “Desiree is one sick fuck. She meets the clients. She tells everyone what she’s got to sell, what’s a hot commodity—although any kid under the age of sixteen is worth bringing in according to her. She scripts the videos. She directs the photoshoots as well as the costuming and props all to make sure the ‘merchandise’ is presented in a manner that will get the clients stoked up and willing to bid high.” Telaney’s eyes glazed with that distant focus before she snapped her attention back to me. “She’s not human.”

  If I’d had any doubts, she’d just banished them. “Desiree is a demon?”

  Telaney shrugged. “Fuck if I know exactly what she is, but she’s definitely not human. She moves funny. There’s something weird about her eyes. It felt like she was a monster wearing a skin suit or something. It freaked me out. It freaked all the kids out. It freaked out the most badass dudes in the Disciples too.”

  “But that was eight years ago,” I mused.

  “I know. No one believed in demons back then. Everyone thinks they came here two years ago, but what if they’ve been walking around among us for decades? Centuries? Since the fucking cavemen?”

  “Shit.” I remembered what HB and Bishop had said, combining that with what I’d gleaned over the last two years. Demons were rumored to be invincible, powerful beings who could regenerate in a flash, blast cars across the road, rip the soul right out of your body and take you to hell for eternal torture. How the fuck was I supposed to defeat something like that?

  I wasn’t. All I needed was to find a way to get Nevarra, to sneak in and grab her then sneak out, all without coming within a mile of this Desiree.

  “There’s a place they’ll be keeping the kids.” Telaney stood and began to pace. “It’s got to be somewhere they can put in cots, somewhere with a bathroom or a porta john, but limited entrances—somewhere kinda remote or in an area where no one is going to look twice if they hear a voice screaming for help. They’ll have guards.”

  Fuck, that could be anywhere. Abandoned roadside motel. Unused warehouse. Rural foreclosed property.

  “But that’s not how you’re going to find them.” She stopped pacing. “Jimmie didn’t get caught last time. If they’re running this operation again, then they’re using Jimmie. Desiree liked him. Called him an artist. He’s the one that does the photos and the videos. He works with Thumbs, who’s the IT guy.”

  “Thumbs?”

  She made a quick movement with her hands, as if she were texting. “Thumbs. There aren’t many guys with his skill who the Disciples can trust to run the auction and video website.”

  “So Jimmie goes out to wherever they’re holding the kids and does the pictures and video.” All I’d need to do is find this Jimmie and trail him twenty-fourseven. They’d want pictures of any new kids, and probably additional pictures to add to the website to spur on additional bids as the auction progressed.

  “Back when they had me, they did some pictures where they held the kids, but Jimmie was also renting a studio. He wasn’t going to haul all that crap out to some warehouse when he could send a van to get the kids and bring them to a place with all the right lighting and setup.”

  Damn it. This was LA. There had been a million small studios for rent before the demons came, and probably a million and a half now. I couldn’t search every studio, and even if I did my chances of catching him at the very hour he was renting the place were slim to none.

  Telaney vanished into the kitchen and came back with a pad of paper and a pen. “Here. Jimmie’s got a day job.” She handed me a piece of paper with a name and address on it. “James Pollina. He should know where the kids are being held. He’d come by every now and then when I was there to snap quick photos of new kids to use in planning the photo shoots.”

  “Sounds like a real professional.” I shoved the paper into one of my pockets, envisioning me putting a bullet right between James Pollina’s eyes.

  Telaney caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “I was there six months, Eden. I did a lot of videos. Jimmie…he took production seriously. We’d be there all day. I saw stuff like his day-job business cards, his cell phone calls.”

  I got the feeling Jimmie had been a very hands-on director. It made me want to shoot him even more.

  “How do you know he still works at the same place?” It had been eight years, after all.

  Telaney turned away. “Because I keep track of him. I stalk him on social media, on LinkedIn. I want to make sure I never accidentally run across him. I can’t ever see him again. Not after everything he saw…and did.”

  Jimmie was a dead man, just as soon as I found Nevarra.

  “And this Thumbs guy?”

  She shrugged. “Him I don’t know about. Desiree and the Disciples trusted him, so I’m sure they’re still using him, but I only saw him a few times when he swung by the studio to pick up pictures and videos. I don’t know where he lives, where he works, or his real name.”

  I reached over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it before letting go. “Thank you. I’m sorry that I had to put you through all of this. I owe you big time.”

  She walked me to the door. “Just find your sister, and find her fast.”

  “I’ll find her,” I promised Telaney. “I’ll find her, and I’ll bring you Jimmie’s head in a bag.”

  I had no idea why I’d said such a grisly thing to her. It just felt right. It just felt…right.

  She laughed. “I don’t want his head, but if you’d snap a quick picture of his dismembered dick and balls and text it to me, I’d be eternally grateful.”

  I promised to do just that, then I left, walking back to the yoga studio. It was a Saturday but some people worked on a Saturday. I’d go to West Hollywood, and if Jimmie was working, I’d lure him away from his desk. Then I’d make him tell me where they were keeping Nevarra. And if he wasn’t working, I’d break into his office and search it for some sort of clue, because I couldn’t just sit around and wait for him to go to work on Monday. Either way I’d figure something out. Wing it and hope I got lucky.

  I was definitely feeling lucky when I saw the helmet still sitting on the seat of my bike. It was a sign. This was going to be my lucky day, I could just feel it. I’d find Nevarra, take her home, and maybe the money fairy would have stopped by the house and left ten thousand dollars in small unmarked bills for us.

  Ten minutes later, I realized luck was a fickle bitch. I had a helmet, but I’d flooded my bike. Now, it wouldn’t start. I stared at it, cursing silently and wondering what the fuck I was going to do. I doubted anyone in the yoga studio had tools or motorcycle repair knowledge and West Hollywood wasn’t exactly walking distance from Silver Lake.

  But it was hitching distance. I didn’t have time to fix my bike right now, not when I had a man to see about my sister. It was rush hour. For once I wasn’t covered in blood. I’d just catch a ride with someone, beat information out of Jimmie, find Nevarra, then come back for my bike later. It wasn’t like anyone was going to steal a 1989 Yamaha Fazer. Worst case scenario my newly stolen helmet would be gone when I returned.

  It was pretty much the only option I had, so I left my bike with a pat and a promise to return, and started walking west.

  Chapter 17

  There wasn’t as much traffic in Silver Lake as I’d hoped for—at least not the kind of traffic that would give a hitchhiker a lift. I walked for half a mile, eventually catching a ride with a couple of guys heading north on Sunset. I got out when they turned west onto Santa Monica Boulevard and stuck my thumb out
once more. It soon became clear that today was not my day to hitch, so I went with plan B and decided to steal a car.

  There was a U-Haul to my right with trucks stacked behind an eight-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Down and across the street was the hospital complex—two hospitals for the price of one, all squashed into a single block. There would be vehicles in the parking lot, but I didn’t feel right stealing a car from people at a hospital. I eyed the U-Haul place, but that guard with the shotgun looked like he meant business, and driving a box truck around the city wouldn’t be fun.

  I kept walking past the Metro station stop. For probably the first time in my life I wished it was still in service. Pharmacy. Pharmacy. Medical center building—although from the looks of it, it had been abandoned.

  And there, on the south side of the street, was a familiar sight. I grinned, jaywalking across Sunset and nearly getting mowed down by a Honda to stop in front of the parking lot for the Church of Scientology. If I were to walk down L Ron Hubbard Way, I’d pass by the huge complex ending on Fountain Avenue with the ridiculously ostentatious main building façade.

  I wasn’t here to worship, so instead of heading for the front door, I made my way to the parking lot.

  It was slim pickings. Older cars were a heck of a lot easier to steal than the new ones. I could pop the door on a 1982 Mustang, knock the ignition off, stick a couple of wires together, and be on my way, but this 2019 Dodge Challenger in front of me would have an alarm, keyless start, and probably a tracking system. There were tools to bypass all of that, but I didn’t have any with me, and I definitely didn’t have the time to mess with complex computer systems. No, I needed an old car, and weaving through the parking lot, I despaired I’d find one.

  Two Caddys, a Lexus, three BMWs, the Challenger. Fucking Scientologists and their wealthy members.

  Bingo. A Jeep. The nice thing about Jeeps was that they hadn’t changed much since World War II. It had a hard top on it, but even if it was locked, I could get in by using just my multitool. Peering through the driver’s side window, I looked to make sure there wasn’t a steering wheel lock, or something else I couldn’t bypass with what I had in my pockets.

  I saw a reflection behind me in the window, but not soon enough to spin out of the way. A hand grabbed the back of my head and drove it forward. I twisted, taking the blow on the side of my head and not my nose. My skull was hard, my nose wasn’t, and an impact there would have my eyes watering and my mind spinning when I needed to be able to see clearly and think fast.

  Even with a hard skull, it hurt. I kicked back high and felt the give of a knee joint hyperextending. The man screamed and shifted backward and enough to the side that I was able to spin around. Grabbing his shoulders, I smashed my head into his nose then let go and grabbed for my pistol. A hand gripped my wrist and twisted before I could pull the gun from the holster. Now would have been a good time to have a hip holster on the left side. If I lived through this, I’d need to remember that.

  Two men crowded me, pressing my back against the Jeep while the one guy recovered. I kicked out but they were too close to get enough power behind the motion to do anything but maybe bruise a shin. I did manage to knee one guy in the thigh before they spun me around and held me tight against the vehicle. A zip tie clamped my wrists together tight enough that I felt it cutting into my skin. Still, I thrashed around, trying to get enough of an opening to make a break for it. I could run with my hands behind my back. If I could manage to get away, I’d deal with the zip tie later.

  “Damn, this bitch is squirmy,” one of them commented breathlessly. “Can’t I just shoot her?”

  “Bounty pays for her alive,” another growled as he leaned a shoulder into the back of my knees, held my ankles, and zip tied them. “There’s no payout for her dead.”

  “And if she’s dead, she can’t tell us where the money is,” a third added.

  Fixers. I doubled my efforts to get free, only to fall over onto the pavement as they abruptly let me go. I might be able to run with my hands zip tied behind my back, but there wasn’t jack shit I could do with my ankles tied together.

  They all laughed, as if me squirming around on the asphalt of a parking lot was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. One put a foot on my shoulder, reached down, and pulled my gun from the holster. He kept his foot in place while the others searched me, flipping me over to make sure they’d checked every pocket for weapons. They felt me up more than necessary along the way, because clearly I might have a knife surgically implanted in one of my breasts, or shoved in my ass or vagina. The whole time they made lewd comments about what they might enjoy doing to me.

  It wasn’t about sex; it was about intimidation, about making me feel powerless. I was fairly immobilized with my ankles and wrists tied, but I was far from powerless. I thought about using my stun gun powers to melt the restraints, but I’d never done that sort of thing on plastic before and I wasn’t sure how long it would take. I could see that the pistol one of them was carrying had a white muzzle. If I started generating electricity and melting the plastic zip ties, all he had to do was shoot me and whammo. No more magical stun gun powers.

  I needed to go into strategy mode, to think and plan. I didn’t want to make this situation any worse than it already was.

  Once the Fixers were done groping me, they picked me up as if I were a dead deer and carried me to one of the nearby Cadillacs. Had they been tailing me and just happened to use the church lot to park the car, or were they Scientologists coming out of a service or meeting and me being here trying to steal a Jeep was just a lucky break?

  The answer to that question hardly mattered, but I spent some time pondering it as they rolled me into the cavernous trunk of the Cadillac, and closed the lid. I heard the mumble of their conversation, the slam of the car doors. Then I felt the jolting of the car leaving the lot and heading down the road.

  No sooner had the car started then I heard a growling noise. I had no idea what was making that noise, but I could tell whatever it was, it was in the trunk with me. Hopefully it was equally restrained and muzzled, because there wouldn’t be much I could do to defend myself if I were attacked right now.

  I had quite a bit of time during the drive to contemplate the Fixers’ possible religious beliefs as well as wonder where they were taking me. I’d assumed we would have headed downtown where they’d drop me off with the tax collectors, get their bounty, and go, but we were on the road for too long and driving at too great a speed for the relatively short trip downtown.

  They’d mentioned keeping me alive not just for the bounty, but so I could tell them where the money was. That meant they were going to take me somewhere quiet and secluded, and apply sufficient inducement with fists and knives for me to tell them where I had hidden either the cases of bullets or wads of cash from the sale of said bullets. That was going to really suck because I didn’t have cases of bullets or wads cash—and no amount of slicing body parts off me was going to make either of those two things miraculously appear.

  I could try to melt the restraints now, and then surprise them when they opened the trunk to get me out. There had to be something in here I could use to fight them off enough to get away—a tire iron or a jack.

  The other occupant of the trunk growled again, very close to my ear.

  An angry Chihuahua. I’d seen those dogs in action and they were terrifying little monsters. Shoving a pissed off Chihuahua in one of their faces would be the equivalent of putting their head in a blender and pushing puree.

  It growled again.

  Of course, I’d probably get the crap bitten out of me first just trying to grab it. And with my luck the Chihuahua would decide to attack me instead of the Fixers, adding to the number of things I’d need to fight to get away.

  In the end I decided that I really didn’t want to try to melt my restraints while I was being driven around in a large steel box of a vehicle. I had no control at all over the level of wattage or voltage or whate
ver I was putting out. For all I knew I’d try to melt my hands free and end up with an electrified car with three dead men and possibly a dead Chihuahua careening down Sunset Boulevard. We’d smash into something and then I’d probably die because while I didn’t seem to have any problem grabbing a high voltage wire, being flattened by an oncoming dump truck full of gravel would probably do me in.

  Damn it. Why couldn’t I have been born with a more useful magical skill, like teleportation?

  The car made a few fast turns, and I slid around the enormous trunk a bit, smacking into what felt like wire fencing. The thing inside growled again, and I realized that thankfully the angry Chihuahua was caged.

  Why the fuck did three gang members have a Chihuahua in a cage in their trunk? I suddenly wondered. And why were they driving a Cadillac? And attending the Scientology church?

  The Caddy started bouncing like a fucking pogo stick and I once more questioned these guys’ choice of vehicle. Something with a stiffer suspension would have been better for these roads, although being stuffed in the bed of a truck, rolling around on a grooved liner would have been a whole lot more uncomfortable than the cushy, carpeted, luxuriously large trunk of the Caddy.

  Even with the soft suspension, I was sore by the time I felt the car come to a stop. My wrists had swollen up around the zip tie and were raw and bleeding. My shoulders were cramping up from having my arms behind my back. My legs were in good shape though. As soon as the car stopped moving, I tried to pivot around so that I could launch a joined-leg kangaroo-style kick once the trunk was opened. Unfortunately, I’d become completely disoriented bouncing around inside the trunk, and when they opened it, I found I was facing the wrong way.

  Fuck. My. Life.

  I got a quick look at the growling animal in the wire cage as they pulled me out of the trunk. It wasn’t a Chihuahua after all, but some sort of groundhog with claws the size of my fingers and teeth like a row of chipper shredder blades. What the fuck? Were these Fixers also moonlighting as animal control, picking up rabid groundhogs before attending a Scientology service, and snatching me up for a bounty?