The Vengeance Demons Series: Books 0-3 (The Vengeance Demons Series Boxset) Page 15
“What do you need a nympho detox for? Are you that slutty?” People in general tend to buy stuff that would enhance their sexual prowess and attractiveness. These Monk Leeches would banish lust more effectively than any cold shower. They were extremely dangerous to handle. If they were on a person for too long, his or her thirst for life itself would be gone, let alone their desire for the horizontal tango. Strange. Madeleine didn’t strike me as the sort who needed it. She’d always seemed as cold and as uptight as any other vengeance demon I knew.
“I said, give it back.” She stepped on my toes with her heel, and took the brown paper bag back while I was distracted by the pain.
But not distracted enough not to feel the pulsing of the leeches as they took in a tiny fraction of her power, then settled down, content. That was strange. While the Monk Leeches could take sexual energies from just about every kind of supernatural, there was a little ritual that had to take place before the exchange could happen. Unless it was a transfer between brethren. Then it could happen in close proximity even without physical contact.
Monk Leeches were a distant cousin of nymphs.
My, my, Miss I-Look-Down-On-Half-Breeds got a bit of nymph blood in her. That was never in any Lex family history I’d ever heard of. So she stayed cold and uptight because she’d been getting help clearing up her nympho magic.
“Don’t say a word,” she begged. “I’ll do anything. Help with your school work, help you get popular—”
“What are we in, an off-Broadway production of Wicked? What’s Wicked, your blank face asks. Never mind. Listen, get outta here. I’ll think about what else I need and get back to you.”
She beat feet out of there, the paper bag crumpled under her white knuckles. Good, I didn’t want her here when I approached my three targets.
They were clearly respected, or at the very least, feared. That was evidenced by the way people either moved out of their way, tried to shake their hands, or in some bold females’ cases, brushed against them with their breasts. The three seemed very much in their element, and much more confident than when I’d last seen them. I started toward them, but was once again delayed, this time by an impromptu rally.
“Hail the seers!” one of their followers shouted.
“Hail!” everyone cheered. Even the wrestlers took the time to pump their fists in the air before pounding on each other again.
“Hail the foretold chaos at the vengeance ball!”
“Hail!”
“Hail the bet winnings!”
“Hail!”
Foretold, my butt. Chances were these three guys came across my half-brothers while trying to sneak into Grandma’s ball themselves, and then told their followers before the news broke. I’d heard of supernaturals who’d make book on the failure of social events such as Grandma’s ball. It must’ve been a nice little payout for everyone who’d received the tip.
“Thank you, my friends.” Bonaventure the Third put his arms around the waist of a succubus, who was at least seven inches taller than him, which he didn’t mind as he rubbed his cheek against her green-skinned shoulder. “We’re honored by your continuous patronage here at the Monster Market. Prediction of the Week will begin shortly. Meanwhile, please make yourself at home, and eat, shop, and be merry with our many wonderful vendors. You know what they say, come for the Sight, stay for the goods!”
“Don’t forget about the wrestling. A new match every ten minutes!” Wistari, formerly known as Sidekick Number One, put both thumbs up.
“And the best love potions on this plane and the next!” Sidekick Number Two tried to lean into the succubus, and she hissed at him, causing everyone to laugh.
As people got down to the business of browsing, women in sexy retro cigarette girl costumes showed up, offering to sell drinks, faery dust, and one kind of counterfeit goods or another. There were even some stolen items, if a hex bag I saw with an anti-theft ink tag attached was any indication.
Time to make my presence known.
“Ahem.” I pushed past the herd of supernaturals and stopped a few feet before the so-called seers, a hand on my hip.
The three losers’ smug faces turned ashen when they saw me, their eyes as wide as saucers. While they froze in shock, I projected the mental image of the fake hand their way, daring them to remember me. Some supernaturals were better at picking up actual images than others. Based on the way the three guys jumped collectively, I’d say that they were just that type.
They exchanged panicked glances with each other. Bonaventure the Third gestured towards my direction with a “go get her” command to his sidekicks, while they spread their hands in front of them in the universal body language of “don’t look at me.” They knew I could take them in a fair fight. It was there in their eyes as they darted around for the closest exit, their chests, puffed-up just moments ago, deflated.
The people around noticed the change and looked at the three questioningly. The leader recovered first. He said in a loud voice, “Oh, there’s our private appointment.”
I nodded. If they were willing to chat with me in private, then so be it. Less eavesdropping was always better.
“This way, sweetie.”
I allowed the endearment to stand as they gestured me to follow them to one of the backrooms. I even allowed Wistari to grip my elbow, hurrying me away from their entourage and earning me dirty looks from their female fans along the way. There would be plenty of time to make them pay later. They owe me a lot of answers.
As we were almost at the door, I said conversationally, “So, you guys are the seers. I know there’s a line of elves with oracle skill, but I wouldn’t take you for that type.”
Wistari hissed. “Of course we have the Sight. We’re not frauds.”
Then Sidekick Number Two ruined it by saying, “we’re way better than that elephant that predicts the human World Cup.”
“You know that’s not saying much, right?”
Bonaventure the Third walked into the backroom. I followed, with his sidekicks bringing up the rear. I looked around the room cautiously. It resembled any small office in the human world, or any other world. A small IKEA-inspired desk, a chair, a laptop, and a black file cabinet. There was nothing that spelled trap here, nothing that felt enchanted, yet the hairs on the back of my neck rose.
Bonaventure the Third gestured for me to sit on the single chair available, and I shook my head. He shrugged.
“Enough with the polite-yet-seedy-underworld-boss crap.” I held up a hand. “Who are you?”
“We’re the Off-Blacks.” In unison, like in a bad human movie, they all bowed deeply and smoothed out their robes with a dramatic flair. They stared at me expectantly, as if waiting for me to recognize that name, to be shocked and impressed.
“The who?” I’d never heard of them, in or out of school. Whatever their little group was, it couldn’t be that important if their weak magical signatures were any indication. And yet, I couldn’t seem to shake my sense of unease. “Listen, you tell me about those other monks in the Shadow World, or I swear I’m going to hang your feet over the Lake of Sulfur.”
“Who wants to know, and why?” Bonaventure the Third demanded.
“It’s a long story. Just answer the damn question.”
“Not until you answer mine.”
This is so B-rated movie. I took a deep breath. “Alright. I tracked you down because I need to find the other monks. I’m looking for the other monks because number one, they tried to kill me, or hurt me. I’m not sure which. Number two, they did so with weapons similar to the one someone else used when he tried to kill me in his senior residence earlier on the same day. No doubt about the murderous intent on that occasion. So I need you guys to play nice and tell me everything you know about the other monks, because I’m starting to lose track of whom I’m going after and why.”
As I ranted the boys backed away from me. I stepped forward, gearing up my power.
“So, spill.” I stopped moving when they hit the
wall. But something wasn’t right, because their expression turned from terrified to triumphant the moment I paused in front of them. I sent out my senses to ferret out any traps. Still nothing.
Bonaventure the Third smirked at me. “Darling, you’re thinking like a supernatural. But above all we’re businessmen, in a business that creates a lot of unhappy customers. We know how to get rid of them.”
Before I could ask him to clarify that statement, the square of floor I was standing on gave way, and I fell through.
And fell. And fell. I tumbled down a metal slide with sharp curves at every turn. I frantically tried to claw at anything that would stop the downward motion, but the surface was too smooth for any traction. I screamed, the sound snatched away by the air rushing over my face before it could reach my ears. After what felt like an eternity, the slide leveled out, and I rolled out of the side of the Bureaucracy building.
And face-first onto the grimy concrete of the alleyway.
“Owww,” I moaned; my entire body felt like it was on fire with all the bruises starting to form on it. With shaking hands, I pulled out a small tube of healing faery dust I’d saved for emergencies and carefully sprinkled them over my most banged-up body parts. The rest would have to heal on their own.
I’d been on the lookout for supernatural sneakiness from those boys. Who would’ve thought I’d be foiled by a mechanical trapdoor instead?
As I picked myself up and started making my way to the front of the nightclub, I realized that the ride down the building might not have been as non-magical as I thought.
I couldn’t get back to the club.
Oh, I could leave the alleyway, alright. I could step onto the main street. I could hear the heavy beat of the nightclub’s music. I could feel the pulse of so many sentient minds crowded into a finite amount of space. And yet the nightclub wasn’t on the street. Nor was the telltale long lineup of people eager to get in. It just…wasn’t there anymore. Not for me anyway. There was number 264 Richmond Street West, and there was number 268 Richmond Street West, but the Bureaucracy, which should’ve been sandwiched between them, simply wasn’t there anymore.
After going ’round and ’round the block for the eighth time, and attracting suspicious looks from a mounted police officer on standby, I was finally forced to accept the fact that the nightclub was now magically concealed from me. I could wander around there ’til dawn, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. The bouncers, as I remembered, took turns getting a smoke on the edge of the pavement. But as they were part of the establishment I couldn’t even follow my nose to the source of the second-hand smoke, though smell it I did.
Hell and damnation. There went my only lead.
***
I went back there the next night. And the night after. And the night after that. The concealment held. I even brought Fir and Serafina along with me, and all it did was get them as blindsided as I was through their association with me. The “seers” must have some really nasty and unhappy customers if the magic to bar them was that strong. To my best guess, the concealment either worked by placing the entire club in a blockee’s blind spot, or having the knowledge forgotten as soon as it was acquired. The bottom line was, I couldn’t find the nightclub again and had no choice but to seek another way to investigate.
Or I could always go straight for my real target.
While I couldn’t touch Dan Pillar until the Council passed a verdict about my suspension, they didn’t say I couldn’t do a little research on him.
***
I stood invisible near the front of an auction room, the main feature of tonight about to be presented. From the brochure in my hand, I knew it was some kind of modern sculpture that was as hideous as it was pretentious.
According to my sources—alright, Fir’s sources—Dan Pillar was going to be here tonight, He was still in town, and quite active in his various charities or whatever else people with a sordid past did to look good. This charity auction was his baby.
The old man must’ve thought I was long dead and no one else was going to come after him, despite my threat about my handler knowing where I was and all. Maybe he wasn’t kidding when he implied he had supernatural friends in high places. And who was to say he didn’t? He got his borrowed dark magic from somewhere.
Speak of the devil, there was Dan entering the room with his entourage. He looked healthy and distinguished, his steel grey hair slicked back, his suit tailored to perfection. One of his assistants carried a large box that held the feature auction item. He placed it at the front table, touched a mechanism on the box and all its sides fell flattened against the tablecloth.
As soon as the object was unveiled, I realized it was no modern sculpture.
Well, it was glamoured to look like a modern sculpture, but the brochure couldn’t have communicated that rush of raw dark power that was permeating from the seemingly innocent object. The humans in the room couldn’t sense it, but I could.
Yet now that I thought about it, were they really humans? Most of those in the room had human essence that felt just a touch heavy-handed, like air freshener masking the smell of unwashed socks. I took a whiff into my lungs and identified a wendigo, three ghouls and even a kelpie.
I came here to collect facts. Now I understood. This was no art auction. This was a front for dark artifact laundering, catering to fringe supernaturals. This was it, the connection between the mundane and the supernatural in the world of Dan Pillar. The human might’ve stopped scamming women in nineteen ninety-six, but he sure stepped up his game in other areas. This must be how he’d made his supernatural friends.
“And this is as far as you go.” Enid said. When she had appeared beside me, I didn’t know. All I knew was that with her next breath, we were back in my room.
***
“What do you mean, my suspension isn’t over yet? I earned those ten freelance markers fair and square!” I groaned.
Enid coughed. “Not quite ten yet, actually. Only nine point eight three. The Council decided to deduct a few minor points.”
“For what?” I asked incredulously.
Enid’s expression was neutral. “For two typos on your final report.”
“Seriously? They’re going to hold me back on some technicality? Can’t they round the score up?”
“It’s not ten until it’s ten, Megan.”
I rolled my eyes. “Alright. How do you propose I earn that zero point one something of a marker? Do another full assignment? The next semester is starting soon.”
My would-be co-op term of four months was almost over. The summer was almost over. I wanted nothing more than to get back to school and get on with my life.
“You don’t have to do another full.” Enid looked like she was glad to have happy news to share. For once. “I have something here that would just fill the gap.”
Chapter Twelve
THAT SOMETHING, AS IT turned out, was a bit of minor vengeance volunteering.
Vengeance volunteering was essentially a poor man’s version of freelancing. It was small. It was tedious. It earned a stingy number of points. But for my purpose, it was perfect. An investment of one single evening, and I’d be done.
I might still have nightmares about the whole somebody-could-be-out-to-hurt-me thing, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be a nightmare to somebody else.
“No, please stop singing, I beg you. I’ll do anything!” Ms. Wilson, the temp agency owner begged me, clutching a blue-colored marker as if she was tempted to shove the tube into her own ears.
“The sooner you finish writing, the sooner I stop.” I continued with the Show Boat tune, with a little variation of my own:
“After the ball is over,
After the break of morn,
After the tricksters’ leaving,
After the monks are gone,
My own career is sinkin’,
If you could read it all…”
What could I say, my mama was a sucker for cheesy old human musicals. The song was
shrill to begin with, but combine that with my off-key, banshee-style singing, and it wasn’t a bad torture device. It was perfect if one was trying to save on magic. My trickster half-siblings might believe frugality was a disease of the vengeance demons, but I was the one with money left over in the bank at the end of the day, so who was really laughing?
“There. I’m done. See?” Ms. Wilson pointed frantically at the white board in her office. Her foot was tied to the solid antique table on the side with a cable. Every inch of the board was covered with the sentences “I will never again post a job opening when there are no jobs available in my agency.” The dense scribble reminded me of Bart’s handwriting in The Simpsons opening.
When I first got this assignment from Enid, I thought to myself that there was small time, and then there was small time. What was the big deal about a little fake job posting? Then I learned that some recruitment agencies, in an effort to brag to their potential clients that they had a wealth of candidates at their disposal, would put out fake postings on job boards to fish for resumes on a regular basis. The result? Job hunters wasting thousands and thousands of man-hours applying for jobs that never existed, when they could be using the time to go after the real ones that could actually help pay the bills. A pretty low thing to do to people who were already broke and desperate, but not at all illegal in the human world. Turned out with the economy the way it was, more of these postings were popping up. Such small injustices were getting stuck in the Concord, and they were relying on volunteers to sweep the magical chimney.
“Alright, that’ll do.” I nodded. “And remember, don’t do it again, or there’ll be more singing coming your way.” I bent over to release Ms. Wilson from her bond.
“You should use a thinner cable,” a voice said behind me. “‘The use of force and restraint must be kept to a minimum,’ Article 10.5, section C.”