The Vengeance Demons Series: Books 0-3 (The Vengeance Demons Series Boxset) Page 7

  My grandma’s world was all about appearances. If we showed up looking like we were on the verge of running out of juice, it would be rudeness equivalent to dressing like a hobo for a Hollywood red carpet event. You know what they say, you have to have magic to get magic.

  I managed to convince Esme to go behind my dad’s back. I didn’t want to worry him, and I didn’t want him to take over my assignment, either. It was my mess to fix. Besides, what I needed was beyond even his pay grade.

  But we could definitely use a Blue Unicorn from Dad’s mini-fridge. The energy drink, sprinkled with ground-up pearl, was the supernatural version of Red Bull. Useless in a real magical battle, it was nevertheless helpful in pumping us up for the glitzy party.

  If Red Bull gave a human wings, then Blue Unicorn fluffed up a vengeance demon’s already existing ones. Well, for Esme anyway. Her wings were a pair of dark red beauties, an intricate masterpiece of smooth and cool-to-the-touch scales. What did I have? Well, let me put it this way…

  In a family of birds, I’d be the flightless chicken.

  In a group of human internal organs, I’d be the useless and easily infected appendix.

  In Hell’s Kitchen, I’d be the one Chef Ramsey told to f— Well, you get the picture.

  We entered a working-class, mixed race neighborhood on the outskirts of the vengeance plane. The area was home to a variety of supernaturals, from single income bogeymen with piecework jobs, to retired goblin goldsmiths.

  Esme parked the purple sedan two blocks away from the suburban home my parents lived in. That was right, Nicolas Bartholomew Aequitas the second, the arch vengeance demon specializing in the punishment of war criminals and mass serial killers (don’t bother calling if the body count is below thirty), lived in a matchbox bungalow with a bird bath and a pink plastic flamingo on the front lawn.

  Alright, to be fair, the flamingo was more my mother’s touch. So was the swan-shaped birdbath, as a matter of fact. It gave Miss Neringa, the nosy giantess next door, quite a fright every time the stone swan burped out feathers.

  My dad put his foot down when it came to the randomness of the trickery, though, so the easily startled Miss Neringa only saw the burping when she was gossiping or up to no good. In my parents’ house, order and chaos formed an offbeat kind of harmony, held together by a steadfast love.

  Esme and I got out of the car and headed towards the bungalow. Less than ten yards into our walk, we stopped abruptly.

  “You going to tell me how you plan on getting us past that?” She nodded doubtfully towards the boundary beyond which our dad could sense our presence. With advanced magic, it was possible to hide from a vengeance demon. But not from an arch demon, and definitely not in our current state.

  I held my hand out to Esme. With a raised eyebrow, she took my hand.

  “Ouch.” Esme pulled back when a spark jumped from my fingertip to hers.

  “Sorry. But hey, we can go in now.” I put one foot inside the invisible boundary and the other one outside. I could sense my dad, but I just knew he couldn’t sense me.

  “How?” For once, my half-sister sounded awed by me. Tough gig, considering she was top of her class in everything.

  Well, everything vengeance anyway.

  Second to playing dead, hide and seek was a talent near and dear to a trickster’s heart. I sighed. Not that I was a big fan of calling on my mother’s blood, but in for a penny, in for a pound. The reckoning would come soon enough, when I had to fight the urge to invest my rent money in a pyramid scam or reanimate a Council member’s pet rabbit. For now, I might as well enjoy the perks.

  With a nod to Esme, I led the way, approaching the bungalow’s basement entrance through the interconnecting backyards of the neighborhood. Even with the shield, a certain amount of creeping around was involved, since we had to avoid triggering the alarms of our neighbors.

  The door to the basement was unlocked. My parents never really worried about anyone trying to get in, because people generally couldn’t get away from them fast enough. Once inside the house, Esme and I made a beeline for the mini-fridge behind my dad’s bar.

  I grabbed two Blue Unicorns and passed one to Esme. Without ceremony, we drank them down. A delicious warmth enveloped me, rejuvenating in its caffeinated energy. It automatically repaired my glamour, much like a microdermabrasion unearthed a fresh layer of skin in a human spa.

  The skin appeared great for a few days before peeling like crazy, but for a little while there, it looked amazing.

  I was on my last swallow when I heard my dad’s voice booming from the very back of the bar, “What do you think you’re doing, Meg?”

  I choked and then coughed, spilling the energy drink down my front. Damn, just my luck that Dad was here…

  Oh, wait.

  I glared in the direction of the voice. “Hi, Fir.”

  Fir, my trickster half-brother, stepped forward. I always thought his name was quite fitting, since it was seventy-five percent of the word “fire.” He was all spiky ginger hair and freckles, with a fierce yet sneaky personality to match. Though both redheads, Fir was as bright and carefree as Esme was composed and sultry. Oh well, I had no more control over my family members’ appearances than their natures.

  Disappointment was apparent on Fir’s face as he grumped, “How did you figure it out? I nailed that mimicking.”

  “You did, but Dad wouldn’t have called me ‘Meg.’”

  “Damn.” Fir shook his head. “So close.”

  While vengeance demons were all about elaborate and illustrious names, tricksters were the exact opposite. Tricksters carried no last names and favored given names with only one syllable, such as Fir, Clef, Boone, and Ty—which happened to be my older siblings’ names.

  And yes, that was right, I had one half sibling on my dad’s side and four on my mom’s. Before meeting my dad, in the typical flamboyant style of the tricksters, my mother was very, um, social.

  “Don’t be so disappointed about the mimicking.” I snorted. “You managed to see through my shield.”

  “Nah, that was easy. Same trickster blood and all.”

  True, one didn’t trick a trickster.

  “So dare I ask? What are you doing raiding Dad’s fridge, Little Miss-I-Just-Wanna-Be-A-Law-Abiding-Boring-Old-Vengeance-Demon?” Fir folded his arms across his chest and smiled evilly at me.

  My enrollment at Vengeance U had long been an object of ridicule, good-natured or otherwise. Fir, my other half-brothers, and all the trickster relatives just couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea of me not wanting the easygoing, fun-filled life they’d taken for granted. If I’d wanted to become a full-time trickster, there was no university to attend, no professional hours to accumulate. I would just be. Reaction to the news of me trying the vengeance route had ranged from utter puzzlement to feeling downright insulted.

  I sighed. To a vengeance demon I was too trickster-like, and to a trickster I was too vengeance-demon-like. You just can’t please everybody. Though I had to be fair, the tricksters in my life had always loved me with open arms. They had a child-like ability to live for the day, and they gave and forgave. Couldn’t say that about the vengeance demons.

  Sometimes, like my trickster loved ones, I wondered what the heck I was doing, wanting to have a place in the vengeance world. Maybe because it was something I had to work for, and after a lifetime of being an outcast in that society, I had something to prove.

  But that didn’t mean I wasn’t aware I was disappointing a lot of people I cared about by not taking up the trickster lifestyle of eat, drink and be merry.

  Deep in thought, I didn’t raise to Fir’s bait. That only got him more interested. He winked at the empty Blue Unicorn bottle I’d gotten caught red-handed with, making sure not to spare Esme a single glance. “Oh, I’m so going to tell.”

  Esme pushed me aside and stepped in front of Fir. The energy drink was making her a little tipsy, and she cared far less about manners than she usually would. “Hey. Don’t
talk and act like I’m not here.”

  Fir finally looked at Esme. His eyebrow rose. “I can talk however I want.”

  Esme scoffed. “Why, you little fiscally irresponsible, live-at-home—”

  I had to stop her before she said something she might regret later. True, one was more likely to find a trickster writing bad checks than saving to move out, but in this particular instant, Esme might’ve let her prejudice blind her just a little bit.

  “Er, Esme, I think Fir here is actually trying to be nice.”

  Esme frowned. “By ignoring me?”

  “According to his Twitter update, his latest calling is to prank the super serious. You’re like an early Christmas present to him right now, and the only way to resist pranking you is to avoid direct contact.”

  “Oh.”

  Unlike vengeance demons, tricksters didn’t go to college to be educated and find job placement. Instead, they goofed around until inspiration struck, then picked the calling of the week and wreaked some havoc.

  Fortunately, the humans on Twitter thought all these weekly updates were for laughs.

  If I was correct, Clef’s latest calling was blind spots (Miss Neringa overlooked her winning numbers at the Lady Luck’s Scratch & Win lottery), Boone’s was panic (mysterious kiddy flu, anyone?), and Ty’s was the old switcheroo plus illusion (for twenty-six minutes during the royal visit to Toronto last Saturday, people were bowing and curtseying to a goat rather than Her Majesty the Queen of England).

  I made a point of keeping abreast of these things because I’d been the victim of way too many pranks in my life.

  “See?” Fir fisted his chest with a loud thump. “I’m the good guy here.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I mumbled.

  “So, back to my original question, what are you doing raiding Dad’s fridge?”

  I winced, knowing I had to give Fir some parts of the truth if I didn’t want him to hound the whole thing out of me.

  Think Fast, Megan.

  “We’re going to Grandmother Aequitas’s charity ball. It’s raising money for the, um…”

  “Retired golden lost-soul retrievers,” Esme filled in primly.

  “Right. Just boosting up for the party.” I gave him what I hoped was a convincing smile.

  “Well, come on up and say hi to everyone then.” Fir started walking towards the stairs. “I’ll create an illusion so it looks like you’re coming through the garage door, not the basement. The two doors are next to each other anyway, so it’s a simple trick.”

  That was a bit too easy. Maybe it was the Blue Unicorn or the trauma of the day making me careless, because the glimmer of mischief in Fir’s eyes should’ve been a fair warning.

  In hindsight.

  ***

  I’d read Romeo and Juliet in high school—not even enrolling in the demonic education system could save you from Shakespeare. In the play, the death of Romeo and Juliet reconciled their feuding families.

  But what if Romeo and Juliet hadn’t died? And they each brought children from previous relationships into the marriage, and then went on and had a kid of their own? What if their prospective families weren’t so much feuding as freezing each other out with quiet disdain and mutual distrust?

  Yep, that would describe my extended family.

  When my parents met, Dad had just gotten a divorce from a vindictive vengeance demon specializing in scorned women and severed male sex organs—guess he should’ve seen that one coming, eh? Mom had just kicked Ty’s father to the curb. It was just as well that tricksters in general didn’t believe in marriage contracts, or it would’ve been impossible for her to get rid of that no-good leech.

  During an assignment on an international arms dealer, Dad found Mom in the grenades storage, pulling the old switcheroo. They saw each other over a box of stink bombs, and that was it. Though one never believed in marriage and the other had had his faith badly shaken, they fell in love and got hitched, much to the chagrin of both sides of the families.

  Why the opposition? Well, the vengeance demons saw Mom as an opportunistic slut hoping to climb the demonic social ladder, and the tricksters thought Dad was a boring old killjoy who was going to make the supernatural world take them far too seriously. Both groups looked upon the marriage in utter disgust and horror.

  How my parents managed to get together amongst the outcry and social pressures I’d never know, but there sure was a lot of excommunication and dung throwing in the early years.

  But in the end, things settled down. The Concord Council came to realize that mushily in love or not, Dad was still the most fearsome arch vengeance demon they had, so they made everyone back off. As for the tricksters, well, they were creatures of intense but short-lived passions and just couldn’t stay mad at anyone for long.

  By the time I was in grade school, all the doors had re-opened for my parents on both sides, reluctantly or otherwise. But that didn’t save me from the nasty whispers or being the last chosen in every game in gym class. Things were always simmering just below the surface, the disdain evident in the dirty looks that came from young classmates and adults alike. Not to mention every birthday party I wasn’t invited to.

  I knew about those parties, though. Through Esme. She was always invited. Just like she was invited to this charity gig for the bloody soul-grabbing retrievers.

  I must admit, I liked the tricksters’ more straightforward style. They threw all the dung they could at ya, and then they were good. None of this decades-long cold-shoulder crap. So I stand corrected, the aforementioned quiet disdain and mutual distrust were mostly from the vengeance demon side.

  As I reached the top of the stairs to the main floor, the smell of delicious cookies filled my nostrils. Mmm, chocolate chip cookies, Mom’s favorite recipe. The woman made horrible main courses, but her cookies were the stuff of legends.

  My tummy growled, and I realized I’d drank a whole bottle of Blue Unicorn on an almost empty stomach. I’d eaten the four mini cucumber sandwiches Rosemary left at my door, but my deprived system had digested that almost immediately. Oh, delicious cookies…nothing like washing a strong drink down with some homemade baked goods. Wait, I think I got that in reverse. Oh well, it was a good excuse to eat.

  The basement staircase opened into the kitchen, which was empty. All the noise seemed to be coming from the living room. I felt almost sorry that Fir wasted a good illusion, but then I remembered the more energy he used, the less trouble he could potentially get himself into.

  I grabbed five cookies from the tray on the cooling rack and walked into the living room.

  Mom and Dad were kissing on the couch. They did that a lot, but the “ewww” factor never went away. Dad was in black pants and a dress shirt with his tie loosened up. I bet he just came from work and didn’t even bother to change before settling in with Mom. She had that kind of effect on him. With her long, black, curly hair, radiant skin, and voluptuous figure, she was one gorgeous woman—never mind what the vengeance demons and their harsh beauty standard said.

  Clef, Boone, and Ty sat on the carpet in front of my parents with their eyes glued to the television. Their clothes were made of small patches of rags inclusive of every color under the rainbow, as any self-respecting male trickster’s wardrobe would be. When I came into view, all three of my half-brothers straightened up and looked at me at the same time, reminding me of a group of meerkats.

  A group of beer-bellied, hair-losing meerkats in their mid to late twenties. Weight gain and early baldness had always been a trickster’s bane. That was why court jesters—which were really medieval tricksters in disguise—always had those silly pointy-tipped hats on in paintings. All the better to hide their bald heads with.

  As for weight issues, let’s say that the most popular insult I got in high school was pounds-related, not magic-related. I was always on the more…er, curvy side of the scale.

  Mom pulled away from the smooching and greeted Esme and me with a beautiful smile. Dad hastily tugge
d down the front of her top to cover her exposed lower belly, and gave us a sheepish grin more fitting to a teenager than a fearsome instrument of vengeance.

  Mom patted the unoccupied part of the couch. “Megan and Esme. What a surprise. Come and join us. We’re just about to start a movie marathon. A four-part comedy, actually.”

  I picked up the DVD cases on the coffee table. Scream, Scream 2, Scream 3, and Scream 4. I guess to a trickster it would be the stuff of comedies, since the ways people got killed in those movies were dumb.

  It would be kinda fun to sit back and enjoy the show, but with the entire Aequitas clan in the same room, I had to get out of there before one of them figured out what Esme and I were up to. The fact that all my half-brothers were home and not off making mischief meant only one thing.

  They were between gigs.

  And nobody was as inquisitive as an out-of-work trickster. I did mention Esme was a terrible liar, right?

  “Sorry, Mom, I'm just here to pick up a few things,” I said quickly.

  I regretted the matter-of-fact words as soon as Mom's smile dimmed. Dad was better at hiding it, but he was disappointed just the same. To the rest of the world he was Mr. Tough Guy, but he was always a teddy bear to me. It’d been a year since I’d moved out for college. I missed him, and I missed Mom. I missed the simpler times of taking shelter in their home, safe from the meanness of the outside world. I’d spent so little time with them in the last year, my entire focus on getting the co-op position.

  But that position was the exact reason why I had to go. Pronto.

  “It’s alright, love. Our baby’s all grown up and she’s got things to do,” Dad muttered, pressing a light kiss on Mom’s hair.

  It wasn’t a guilt trip. That wasn’t my dad’s way. But I felt guilty nevertheless.

  Aid came from an unexpected corner. “She can’t stay. She’s going to a fancy ball at Grandma Aequitas’,” Fir piped in. Since when did he ever call her Grandma Aequitas? More often used by him were names like the Wicked Witch of the Venge.