The Vengeance Demons Series: Books 0-3 (The Vengeance Demons Series Boxset) Read online

  “Hello, I’m here to see Mr. Dan Pillar.” I nodded at the receptionist with the nametag “Kristi.” I laced a compulsion into my words to make her more obliging and less likely to ask inquisitive questions.

  Kristi beamed. “Mr. Pillar is at the spa for his massage appointment. Would you like to wait at the bistro?”

  “Sure.” I fought to keep my voice neutral. Spa, huh? He’d need a lot more than a relaxing massage by the time I was through with him.

  “It’s upstairs, miss, just past the entertainment lounge. Feel free to help yourself to the refreshments. I’ll notify you when Mr. Pillar becomes available.”

  The elegant bistro, with lace linen tablecloths, gleaming silverware, and expensive china tea sets, treated patrons to the magnificent view of Lake Ontario. Soft piano music played in the background. A pair of chefs in starched white aprons were on standby in the open kitchen, a wild array of fresh ingredients from asparagus to salmon on display behind them, ready to create culinary delights on demand.

  I ground my teeth. Daily fine dining for the bastard in his twilight years, and what about the poor women he’d stolen from in their dying days? How many of them had been forced to live on day-old bread and bruised vegetables from the discount grocery aisle?

  There was a station at the front of the bistro full of cut-up fruits, coffee, and fancy pies. These must be the refreshments Kristi had been talking about. Well, I was never one to let free food pass me by, even though my stomach, still full from Rosemary’s truly awesome muffins, was a bit queasy over the upcoming encounter. Not that I hadn’t done vengeance before, but this was the first time I was earning marks that actually counted towards the co-op.

  Maybe the refreshing taste of key lime pie was just what I needed. I cut a small piece, lifted it, almost dropped it back to the tray, and rescued it just in time. Stupid, unsteady fingers. Finally, I settled down on a dining chair and placed the pie in front of me.

  Just as I put a forkful of citrus delight into my mouth, a shadow loomed over me. “You’re here to see my grandpa?”

  I munched on the treat, looked up, and narrowed my eyes on a guy standing over my table in a white T-shirt and jeans. So this was my target’s grandson, huh? Funny, somehow I never figured the con artist to be the family type.

  “Yes, I’m here to see Mr. Pillar.” I tried my best professional smile, the my-business-is-my-own kind of detached politeness.

  “What do you want to see him for?” Suspicion was evidenced from the downward turning corner of his mouth.

  “I have an appointment.” Be vague and bluff your way through.

  “No, you don’t. I already checked his Google calendar.”

  Damn.

  “So why are you really here?” the guy persisted.

  “None of your business.” Alright, that sounded fresh out of tricks, even to my ears.

  The guy’s jaw hardened. “Anybody coming to see my grandpa is my business. We’ve got a lot of scammers hanging around here, hoping to make a quick buck off the seniors. So if you can’t give me a good reason why you should be here, then I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  I wondered if this guy, so protective of his precious grandpa, was aware of the irony of calling me a con artist. I crossed my arms over my chest, and he mirrored my stubborn stance.

  The guy breathed out exasperatedly and ran his fingers through his hair, “Listen, you shouldn’t even be here. I left specific instructions at the reception to block unwanted visitors.”

  I realized that if it hadn’t been for that compulsion I used on the receptionist, I would most likely have been barred from entry. But now that I was in, there was no getting rid of me. Vengeance demons were like termites in that way.

  The guy was still standing over me. I disliked the height difference, and the psychological disadvantage it placed me at. I also didn’t like how he looked me up and down like I was a bug. A money-grubbing bug.

  “Sit down.” I gave the command almost before I realized what I was doing.

  The guy sat with a smack as his bum hit the chair. Oops, I might’ve been a bit too heavy-handed with the compulsion.

  “What’s your name?” I asked him. While under my spell, he would tell me the truth. All truth.

  “Will Pillar,” he obliged in a flat voice.

  “Is your grandpa free now?”

  “Yes. We’re done for the day.”

  I frowned. “I thought he was having a massage.”

  “He was. With me.”

  “Why you?”

  “I’m studying to be a massage therapist. This way he gets a free session, and I get to practice.”

  I noted for the first time that Will Pillar had a white towel over his shoulder.

  He continued talking. Sometimes I gave off tiny, unconscious magical outbursts, and the subjects offered information beyond my questioning. I guess I just had a knack for making people loose with their tongues. “Mr. Harrison claims I pinched a nerve that one time, but Grandpa doesn’t mind. He keeps letting me practice on him.”

  If the elder Pillar could afford to live here, he could afford to pay for the most experienced massage therapist money could buy. So finances was definitely not the motivating factor behind his participation in these free sessions. I had a sudden mental image of an indulging grandfather risking bodily injury to let his rookie of a grandchild work on him. It seemed so contradictory to the heartless bastard I’d pictured in my mind. Could people change over the course of a few decades?

  I wished my paternal grandma was that good to me. The Aequitas matriarch hadn’t even come to my Becoming, nor did she send along the traditional gift of a pair of pearl stud earrings. The two tiny lustrous spheres, custom-sculpted by the Baltic mermaid-witches, were a means to enhance and control one’s power. My grandma had sent me a store-bought pendant on a chain instead, the humiliating single pearl dangling on my neck for everyone at the party to see.

  A slap in the face, mocking my hybrid status.

  Half the vengeance power times half the amplifier. Any wonder why my magic sucked? This Dan Pillar might be a shady character, but at least he seemed to be treating his grandson alright.

  On a hunch, I leaned over and locked eyes with Pillar Junior. “What is your date of birth, Will?”

  “Nineteen ninety-six, August the second.”

  Now I understood why Dan Pillar had stopped.

  I felt a pang of sympathy for him. Somehow, the harm my target had caused got lodged in the Concord and took decades to come back to haunt him. But come back, it did, even long after the wrongdoer started to love.

  I was certain now that was exactly what had happened. Somehow, the birth of his own child’s flesh and blood had woken the older man’s conscience.

  Never mind. All the love and conscience in the world couldn’t take away the mass suffering of Dan Pillar’s victims, and I still had a job to do.

  Gently putting my unfinished key lime pie on a neighboring table, I got up, leaving Will Pillar shaking the cobwebs out of his brain. He wouldn’t remember our meeting.

  As I went downstairs and walked across the marble lobby floor, the clicking sound of my heels bounced around the hallway. I kept clear in my mind an old medieval expression I’d learned in my high school history class.

  Justice arrives on a wooden leg.

  As in, it would come slowly, but surely. In the absence of a wooden leg, my pair of leather kitten heels would do.

  ***

  Kristi the receptionist gave up Dan’s room number without a fight. In less than five minutes, I was taking the elevator to the top floor and knocking on my target’s door. “Mr. Pillar?”

  “Come in.”

  I opened the door and my jaw dropped. This wasn’t a “room.” This was a penthouse suite done up with a ten-foot ceiling, a mahogany library on the left, and a contemporary kitchen on the right that was larger than my entire living space at the duplex.

  Dan Pillar was sipping brandy in an armchair in the library, a le
ather-bound volume on his lap, appearing every inch like his photo. Even as an old man, the senior Pillar was one handsome fellow. His angular face and brilliant eyes bespoke decades of fine living, his hair a steely shade of grey. The large ruby ring on his slender right hand seemed right at home.

  I closed the door quietly and, before I turned, I activated the magical noise muffler for some much-needed privacy.

  Dan lifted his head, saw me and smiled. “Hi, there. Are you here to deliver the cupcakes for this afternoon? Well, don’t close the door. Just bring the whole cart in. The gold leaf red velvet was quite the hit last time.”

  Huh, I wasn’t even wearing a caterer’s uniform. Guess when you were used to a certain social position, you assumed everyone worked for you in one manner or another.

  I cleared my throat. “Are you Dan A. Pillar, of Hamilton, Ontario, born to Sophia and Robert Pillar?”

  The smile fell from his face and he clutched his hands together. He glanced at the door and finally seemed to realize why I’d closed it. His jaw set, he nodded.

  “Mr. Pillar, it’s time to pay for your past sins. By the power vested in me by the Concord Council, you’re hereby sentenced to Vengeance. May you endure it with grace and contemplation.”

  My plan came in two stages. First, I’d force him to experience what his victims felt. All the heartbreak, shame, and despair in one fell swoop. Then I’d redistribute his wealth to those he’d hurt.

  That sounded pretty fair to me.

  Next thing to do was to give him his Belinda, the vengeance demon version of the Miranda rights. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do may offend the assigned vengeance demon and lead to a more severe punishment. You have the right to—”

  “Thanks, but I have no intention of keeping silent, nor being punished, for that matter,” Dan said softly. His demeanor changed from easygoing to chilling in less than a second, and every ounce of warmth left the apartment. With his hands held together, he began to rub his blood-red ruby ring against his thumb, muttering something under his breath.

  The hair at the back of my neck stood up in attention.

  “I knew your kind would come one day, so I’m prepared at all times,” he continued.

  Wait a minute. It wasn’t just my imagination; the temperature in the large penthouse had indeed dropped by a few degrees. A vortex of light and energy formed in the space between us, and there was no mistaking the shockwave of power filling the room.

  Oh shit, Dan was calling magic. The dark and brutal variety.

  He was not of magic, that much I was certain. But there were magical objects in the world that could be dangerous in the wrong hands, mortal or otherwise.

  I would’ve tried to stop him, to reach for my pearl pendant necklace—weak magic against such an unnatural force and all—but from the moment he’d started the muttering, I’d been unable to move. In a my-body-is-in-a-block-of-invisible-cement kind of way.

  I tugged at my arms, then tugged some more, all to no avail. It was like those sleep paralysis episodes I’d had when I was a child. My eyes darted from side to side, seeking a way out, and all I saw around me was expensive carpets and oil paintings. Beautiful, but useless. I had to get out of here. This was not the way things should be going down.

  At least when I’d experienced the paralysis as a kid, deep down I’d known I was still safe in my bed. The present-day me didn’t have that comfort. I was alone, helpless, with no access to my own power and completely at the bad guy’s mercy.

  I didn’t want to die.

  I tried to kick out, my legs more than willing to give it a shot, but I was unable to move even an inch. I wanted to do something. Anything but stay still. The nervous energy building up inside me ricocheted across my cold and tightened muscles, assaulting my senses with its feral need to be released.

  I pressed down my rising panic. If I couldn’t move, maybe I could talk my way out of this one. It always worked in those human movies.

  “Where did you get that ring?” I croaked. Was that really my voice? Coarse and weak, it held none of the authority I was desperately trying to project. My galloping heart threatened to jump out of my chest, and the bitter taste of bile was on my lips.

  Dan’s lips curved. “As I said, I’ve got…friends.”

  “I bet it cost you more than a few gold leaf red velvet cupcakes.” I spit out.

  “It was worth every penny to stop a vengeance demon in her tracks.”

  How did he know to do that? The average human went through life without ever hearing of my kind’s existence. Except Joss Whedon, and people just thought he was super-brilliant at making shit up.

  Dan rubbed harder at his ring, and some sort of bubble materialized. It expanded to the size of a small elevator, then came toward me and enveloped my body. Inside the bubble was a mini universe of intense high temperature. My body, which had been freezing until that point, heated up.

  My skin was scorched and my hair began to singe; the aging faery dust on my cheek melted away as if it was never there. Next was my vengeance magic. The ring neutralized it with frightening efficiency.

  The bastard intended to burn me alive. And to think I’d been feeling sorry for him. If, no, when I survive this, all bets were off.

  “You won’t get away with this.” He wouldn’t. If he realized that, maybe he’d hesitate. “My handler knows where I am.”

  “Let me worry about that.” Dan waved his hand. “Think, my dear, if I have friends who could help me destroy you, then I have friends who could help me survive. Bye-bye, my little vengeance demon. As they say, it’s not personal.”

  But it was.

  The soles of my kitten boots began to melt. The acrid smell of rubber invaded my nose. Instinctively I closed up my airway, which only served to make me dizzy from the lack of oxygen. With dark spots swimming in front of my eyes, it finally sank in. I was going to die. In a few minutes I would be burned to a crisp.

  I wasn’t ready to die. Not by a long shot. My life had barely started, and there was so much I wanted to see and experience. Mom and Dad would be devastated if something happened to me. Heck, I would be devastated.

  Mom.

  Wait! There was one thing that might help.

  The very reason why I only had half the vengeance power was because I also had half the trickery power, and I had plenty of that on reserve, dormant and not affected by Dan’s spell.

  For a trickster, the simplest trick, first learned and last forgotten, was how to play dead.

  I closed my eyes, the gleeful face of Dan Pillar the last thing I saw. I pulled the long-neglected trickery magic around me, fueled it with the raw energy stemming from my fear. I darkened my skin with a messy layer of ashes, dried blood, and raw flesh, simulating the visual effects of a third-degree burn. Then I shut down my organs, froze my veins, and stopped my lungs from taking another breath.

  I set my internal timer to wake up in one hour, and sank into oblivion. I would’ve sent up a quick prayer if I could’ve, but ya know, being a demon and all.

  Chapter Four

  WHEN I CAME TO, the first thing I noticed was the revolting mess of rotten meat and vegetables covering every inch of my body. My shoulder was wet, and there was the distinct stench of alcohol in the air. My best guess was that there was a beer spill in the lot and my top had conveniently absorbed most of it. Luckily I could hold off inhalation for minutes on end, because the one breath I got into my lungs almost made me gag. Wherever I was, it was pitch black.

  I stretched my legs and gave my surroundings a tentative kick.

  Pang!

  Damn, my foot hit metal. I kicked harder.

  Pangggg!!!

  Make that very solid metal. Wait, a large dark metal enclosure with moldy mushrooms and animal fat galore? That could only be…

  A lid opened above me, and someone swore, “Shit, I knew it!”

  The sudden transition from total darkness to high noon was blinding. I lifted my hand to cover my eyes, onl
y to remove it just as fast when I realized I was smearing slime all over my eyebrow.

  I could make out a person—I think a woman—with one hand holding up the lid, a black plastic bag of trash in the other. She scowled, though whether from the bright sunlight or the way I looked, I didn’t know. She was in her mid-forties, plump, and wearing some sort of human service worker uniform. Not a janitor though. A member of the cleaning staff, maybe?

  “I knew I heard something.” She shook her head. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m alright.” As alright as someone could be after being taken out like the trash. I flexed my fingers and toes. I could use a shower, or ten, but all my limbs seemed to be in good working order.

  “Can you get up?”

  I pushed myself up to a squatting position, not daring to move too fast. Ouch, I think a few of my toes were caught in one of those plastic beer can rings. Yep, there was definitely some fermentation going on in this enormous metal box.

  “Here...” The woman leaned in and offered me her hand. I didn’t hesitate to take it.

  It was a bit of an awkward climb, getting out of the dirty dumpster full of sharp and oddly shaped objects. In the end, it took me three tries and the help of two pizza boxes, one broken office chair back support, and the shell of a humidifier.

  The woman kept bitching while she pulled me out. As I needed her help, I decided to keep quiet.

  “What are you doing in there?” she demanded. Then she sniffed when I got my beer-drenched self closer to the edge of the box. “Oh hell, did you get drunk and fall in? It’s not even past the lunch hour yet. Is this over some guy? Trust me, hon, it ain’t worth it. You’re like, not even twenty. You’ll find someone else.”

  Not even twenty? Oh, right, the aging faery dust was long gone. But even with it on, I doubted it would stop the woman’s lecture. She seemed to take it upon herself to give me some worldly advice.

  “Now you listen to Hazel, and you listen good. No man’s worth it. I kicked my no-good husband to the curb in nineteen ninety-eight and haven’t look back since. Repeat after me: no man’s worth it.”

  “No man’s worth it,” I obliged. Yeah, this was over some guy, alright, but it wasn’t a matter of him being worth it or not. I had a job to do. And I had to finish it.