“It’s not my demon name, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Not at all.” I took out my phone. “I just need to know what to put your number under. If anyone found my phone and read ‘The Dealer,’ I could be in trouble.”
He flashed me a brilliant smile. “It’s Villione. It was given to me many centuries ago, after I first arrived on earth.”
I stilled a moment before punching the name into my phone. “Does it stem from what I think it does?”
“A life of debauchery and mayhem?”
“Something like that.”
“Yes, Charlotte,” he said, his voice smooth like fine whiskey. “I was a very bad boy once upon a time.”
I nodded. “Okay, well, that’ll work for now. But Reyes knows your real name, right?”
“He does.” He said it almost regretfully. “Not that he ever used it in hell.”
“Then I’ll just ask him. Until then, Osh it is.”
“And her name?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet. I’ve been calling her Beep.”
He laughed softly, giving my belly a light rub, then pulling back his arm. “I don’t know why, but that seems very appropriate.”
“Thank you. I like to think so.”
He winced as he rolled fully onto his back again.
“Why are you and Reyes sleeping on your backs? Your wounds are horrible. Wouldn’t you be more comfortable on your stomachs?”
He rubbed his eyes, his lids drifting closed every so often, no matter how hard he fought against it. “You learn things where we come from, and one of them is that you are much more vulnerable on your stomach. No demon worth his salt sleeps on his stomach.”
“Oh.” That was certainly not the answer I’d expected. A survival instinct. Interesting.
“What you should be asking yourself,” he said, indicating Mr. Wong with a nod as the departed man hovered in my corner, “is why a being that ungodly powerful is hanging out in your apartment.”
We spent a quiet evening at home, and I used much of that time studying Mr. Wong. I’d heard that before, of course – that Mr. Wong was powerful – but he’d been here when I first looked at the apartment, not the other way around. It wasn’t like he showed up later to stalk me or anything. Then again, why was a being that powerful hovering in the corner of an apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico? Wouldn’t he have better things to do?
Before I could ask Osh any more about it, his lids had drifted shut once more, as though he could no longer hold them open. So I dropped it. For now. But studying Mr. Wong wasn’t getting me anywhere either. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was all connected. Mr. Wong. The Twelve. Even the house that was possessed. Did a recent demon possession have anything to do with the Twelve showing up? I’d find out soon enough. I was meeting Father Glenn there in a couple of days. Hopefully, I would find some answers, along with the demon that liked to carve my name.
Cookie and Amber brought dinner. Uncle Bob joined us, too. He had so many questions, but I just didn’t have the energy or the desire to answer them. I’d been drained and I was barely injured. I couldn’t imagine what the boys were going through.
Reyes hardly stirred enough to eat, but Osh explained that the deeper he slept, the faster he’d heal. He could actually go almost comatose and be healed from a near-fatal injury in a matter of hours.
“We all can,” he said, staring at me pointedly. “Since he got it the worst, however, one of us needs to stand guard.”
“So, you won’t heal as fast as he does?”
“No. But I will once he wakes. I’ll go into stasis and be as good as new in a day.” He looked up in thought. “Maybe two days. This is fantastic,” he said to Cookie and Amber, twirling spaghetti around his fork.
Amber blushed, the little hussy. She had the biggest crush on Quentin, a Deaf acquaintance, but I could understand her fascination with Osh, though I was still having a difficult time connecting the name with the kid. He didn’t look like an Osh at first. Maybe the more I used it, the more he would become Osh. Osh Villione. I wondered if he’d let me call him OshKosh B’gosh. Prolly not.
“That guy who attacked you today,” Ubie said, keeping a wary eye on Osh, “was in prison with Reyes.”
I nodded. “He seemed a little rough around the edges. When did he get out?”
“That’s just it. He didn’t.”
I put down my fork. “What do you mean?”
“According to prison records, he died two weeks ago.”
“What?” I asked, completely taken aback. “There’s no way, Uncle Bob. I can tell a living person from a dead one.”
“You haven’t asked me the best part yet.”
“Okay, what’s the best part?”
“He died of a heart attack. He was in his sixties.”
“This guy had some issues, but I doubt heart disease was one of them.”
“We’re looking into it, pumpkin. It has to be some kind of clerical error.”
“Please, keep looking. And while we’re on the subject,” I said, biting my lower lip in hesitation, “did you tell the captain?”
“I did. I’m sorry, hon. I was kind of at a loss on what to do.”
“No, it’s okay. And?”
“He agrees with me. We need to let this one slide for the time being. The guy you identified as the perp is already dead on paper. We can’t send in a crime scene, knowing they could be attacked. And how would we explain it, anyway?”
I relaxed visibly. Another day without being arrested for murder and/or covering up a murder was a good day in my book.
“But he does have some questions for you,” he said.
“Of course he does. Oh, and I asked Rocket. All the people in the suicide notes have passed. But the one from this morning,” I added curiously, “lived until this afternoon. You got the letter at what time?”
“The wife said she woke up and it was in the kitchen. Nothing was gone or missing except him.”
“Had he changed clothes? Taken his phone? Made coffee?”
“None of the above. From what she could tell, he just disappeared in the middle of the night.”
“I’ll go talk to her tomorrow and to the families of the other two.”
“There’s a fourth,” Cookie said, surprising us.
“What do you mean, hon?” Ubie asked her. Hon. So cute. And kind of disturbing.
“Right here.” She retrieved some papers she’d brought over earlier. I hadn’t paid attention, but she’d certainly piqued my interest now. “Okay, according to a news article from The Los Angeles Times, a woman named Phoebe Durant went missing about two months ago. She left a suicide note saying she was going to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, but she left everything behind: her purse, phone, car keys, the car itself. And there was a sign of what the LAPD said looked like a struggle, but they couldn’t be certain. A cup was broken in her bathroom, and a few scuff marks marred the walls. They said it could have been shoe prints of someone being taken against their will, but it could also have been just general wear and tear.”
She handed us the article.
“Look at the note,” she said, pointing to a scanned copy of the suicide note. “The handwriting matches the woman’s, but —”
“The words,” I said, reading the note. “How many people use the word glorious in their suicide notes?”
“Exactly.”
“Nice catch,” Uncle Bob said to Cook.
She smiled shyly.
“How did you get this?” I asked her, holding up the copy of the note.
“A very nice young man in Records sent it to me. I had to promise to look him up if I was ever in the City of Angels.” She winked to Uncle Bob. “He liked my voice.”
“Mom,” Amber said, utterly appalled. “You used your feminine wiles on a man you don’t even know.”
Cookie smiled. “That’s what they’re for, honey. Eat your salad.”
Amber crinkled her nose as Garrett, a skiptracer who’d been to
hell and back, and Osh, a slave who’d escaped from said hell, both laughed behind a façade of soft coughs.
Gawd, my life was strange.
After Cookie, Amber, and Ubie left, I asked Osh if we should change his duct tape. Which sounded odd even to me.
“The duct tape doesn’t get changed until I’m healed,” he said. “Do you know what it feels like to peel duct tape off an open wound?”
I winced. I couldn’t imagine, and, oddly enough, I didn’t want to try. “So, you’ll just know when it’s time?”
He took the recliner that time, and Garrett took Sophie.
“I will,” he said, settling into the plush chair.
“Do you need anything?” I asked Garrett.
“A foot rub would be nice.”
I threw a pillow at him instead. It was a throw pillow, after all. He stuffed it behind his head and closed his lids, a smile playing about his mouth. I couldn’t fathom what he had to smile about. Since meeting me, his life had been turned upside down. I was like a small but devastating plague upon humanity. It was weird.
9
See owner for mounting instructions.
— NOVELTY UNDERWEAR
After giving Mr. Wong a kiss on the cheek – or, well, his jaw just under his earlobe because that was all I could reach, with his nose being in the corner and all – I slipped into bed beside Reyes. I didn’t want to wake him while he was in stasis, a state that resembled a well-deserved coma. And I certainly didn’t want to jostle him. His back and shoulder had been through enough. As he showered with Osh and Garrett’s help, I could hardly look on. The Twelve beasts of hell were there for me, and I was the only one to leave that building relatively unscathed.
I lay there a long time, unable to sleep, letting Reyes’s heat wash over and warm me. Having him around sure saved on the heating bill at night. But the more I lay there, the more terrified I became. It was no longer about me. I rubbed my abdomen thoughtfully. Perhaps it was never about me. According to the prophecies, I was simply the vessel that brought in the true heroine of our story: Beep.
Clearly she needed a better name. Heroines, those who saved the world from evil, deserved great names. I’d have to think on it, but she would forever be Beep to me.
And the world needed her. I hadn’t died today. I had bought another few hours of life, postponed Rocket’s prediction of my demise. Technically, he’d never been wrong, so if I could just stay alive long enough to bring her into this world, I could die happy.
I looked at Reyes’s profile. He’d thrown an arm – the good one – over his forehead, just as Osh had. I wondered if it was a demon thing.
“You’re so serious,” Reyes said, his voice hoarse and scratchy.
I leaned onto an elbow in alarm. “Reyes.” I wanted to hug his neck but didn’t dare risk hurting him. I leaned toward my nightstand and got the bottle of water I’d brought in earlier. “It’s warm now. I can get a cold one out of the fridge.”
“This is fine,” he said, taking a sip before handing it back to me.
“How are you?”
“Peachy.”
“I need to tell Osh you’re awake.”
He looked toward the living room. “He went into stasis the moment I came out,” he said. “He’ll be fine by morning.”
“So that’s how you do it?” I asked him. “That’s how you heal so much faster than I do? You go into some kind of deep healing state like a monk? Or a ninja?”
“Something like that. You do it, too. I saw you the night after Earl Walker tortured you.”
I cringed at the thought of that night. It was not my favorite.
“You went into a deep sleep and healed your wounds almost overnight.”
I scoffed. “It didn’t feel very instant.”
“Dutch, how many people can go through that, then get up and around the very next day?”
“Oh, well, maybe you’re right. But it still hurt like the John Dickens.”
“John?”
“I went to school with him. He used to twist my arm and give me carpet burns.”
He laid his arm over his forehead again. “I could sever his spine.”
“It’s all right,” I said with a soft laugh. “Last I heard, he was selling insurance out of his Buick. He’s paying for his impertinence tenfold. But, so, are you still mad at me?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” After a long moment, I asked, “Do you know how long you’ll be mad at me?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
“Why did you block me from accessing your emotions? Why did you leave without me after everything we discussed?”
“I don’t know. I was just going to Rocket’s and – I just – I don’t want you to think I’m this fragile thing you have to protect 24/7. I want to be able to take care of myself. I want you to know that I can take care of myself.”
“You can. I know that you can better than anyone. And you’ll get better at it as you come into your powers, but until then, what is so wrong with my company?”
“What?” I asked him. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s like you can’t get away from me fast enough.”
“That’s not it, Reyes. That has nothing to do with it.”
“Right.”
“I was mad, okay? You were talking to that woman and you blocked me first.”
After a long moment, he said, “I can’t feel you. I have no idea if you’re lying.”
But I could feel him. I could feel the hurt I’d caused, and a wave guilt washed over me. I’d never meant any of this in the vein he was taking it.
I brushed a lock of his hair over his brow and said simply, “Aperite.” And with that word, I laid bare my emotions again.
He inhaled sharply with the reemergence of my feelings.
“I didn’t want you to feel my jealousy,” I said, embarrassed. “That newswoman seemed very into you.”
“Dutch,” he said, wrapping a hand around my neck, “all the women who come into the bar are into me.”
I almost laughed. Self-deprecating, he wasn’t.
“Or they think they are.” His voice hardened with resentment. “They don’t even know me, Dutch. Their need is exhausting.”
I truly could understand that. Well, not from personal experience or anything. I tended to repel instead of attract. But I felt it from the women and men who came into the bar. He was like a flame, drawing moths from all walks of life, only to have their wings suffocate the fire within him.
“I know where they’re coming from. I’m the same way. I’ve lusted after you since the first time I met you. And I still am, Reyes. I’m your biggest fan.”
He ran his thumb along my jaw and over my mouth. “No. It’s different with you. You were never a sure thing.”
I snorted. “Clearly you have misinterpreted my interest.”
“No, I haven’t. You were never like them. I wish you could feel what I feel. You’re amazingly different. You may not believe this, but you could take me or leave me any day of the week. You could drop me in your wake and be fine.”
I shook my head. “No, Rey’aziel, I couldn’t.”
“I love that you believe that.”
“There’s no winning with a man who just defended me against a hound from hell.”
He dropped his hand, and I felt a wave of shame radiate out of him. “A man who tried to defend you. A man who failed.”
“What?” I shrieked a little too loudly. I slammed my lids shut and waited to make sure I hadn’t woken the two in the living room. When they didn’t so much as stir in their sleep, I whispered, “What the —? You fought a hellhound for me. Three of them, to be exact. What more could I ask from my affianced? I’m so sorry I went in there.”
“If you hadn’t, we might not be here.” He nodded toward Osh. “They incapacitated us before I could do anything. It was so fast.” He smiled at me, his dark eyes shimmering in the glow from my bathroom night-light. That thing was really bright. ??
?But you were faster.”
“I was slow. A bumbling mess. I stopped time just long enough to send myself into a complete panic.”
“You’re wrong,” he said. “I saw you. You moved with the speed and stealth of a cheetah. They didn’t stand a chance.”
“Only because of Zeus. He worked.”
“The god?” he asked, teasing me.
“The knife.”
“Zeus, huh?”
“Well, I thought about calling him Reyes, but I didn’t want to confuse anyone. Including me.”
“And what about that one?” he asked, glancing toward the bun. “She got a name?”
“Beep. For now.”
“Beep?” he asked, his expression humorous.
“Short for Black-Eyed Pea. She isn’t quite as big as one yet, but she will be soon.”
“It’s perfect.”
“It’ll do for now, but we need to come up with a great name,” I said, lying back in thought. “Something that shouts, ‘I will lay waste to the evil in this world!’”
“I agree.” Still covered in duct tape, he turned on his side to face me, his flesh straining against the binds. “You would tell me if something were wrong, right?”
“What do you mean? Of course, I would.”
“So, if you knew something could happen to you, you’d let me know.”
Where was he going with this? “Yes. Nothing is going to happen to me. Well, unless the Twelve get ahold of me. Other than that, I should be fine.”
He nodded in thought.
“Reyes, what is it?”
“I think you keep secrets from me.”
“You keep secrets from me,” I said, teasing. “Seems only fair.”
He leaned forward and nibbled on my ear. “We can decide who gets to keep secrets and who doesn’t later. Until then, want to do it?”
“Reyes!” I said, appalled. “You just had your arm nearly ripped off at the shoulder.” That and the fact that a grown man asking me if I wanted to “do it” was hilarious.
“We can still do it.”
I giggled. “No, we can’t.”
“I’m very creative with my mouth.”
“I am well aware of that.”
“You should sit on my face.”