“S’okay, Ellen. Have a good day at work.”
“Filthy smelly mongrel…” The squirrel’s eyes began to glow red again, and I thumped him on top of his furry little dome with one knuckle. Axel gave a very squirrelish yelp of pain, then zinged under the patio table to glare at me, rubbing his head.
“Ahht! You know the rules, no touchy. You don’t want the dogs to chase you, quit possessing the local wildlife.”
“I could always visit you in my true form. I could eat that dog’s heart and spread its entrails over their trees like garland. Think your neighbors would like that?” He was angry now; his tail was twitching all over the place. He really hated dogs. They felt the same about him.
“I think if you don’t want me to have Mira ward the yard, you’ll behave.” After the talking cockroach incident, she put protective wards on the doors and windows. Axel hadn’t come anywhere near the house since.
The squirrel burst into a stream of profanity in both English and Demonic, ran a couple laps around the patio, then fell over dead as the demon vacated its little body.
“Dammit, Axel!”
Just once, I’d like to start my morning without having to bury some furry corpse. I’m running out of places to stick them in the yard, and I secretly harbor the fear that they’re all going to get up some night and come knocking on the sliding glass door a la Pet Sematary. Like I said, I don’t do zombies.
The neighbor’s dog fell silent the moment Axel disappeared, proving that the demon really had departed. I went in search of a shovel.
We had a strange relationship, Axel and I. His job was to con me out of my soul, something he went about with the bare minimum effort. And my job… I liked to think it was to make his life even worse than Hell. We enjoyed baiting each other, playing the occasional game of chess. Sometimes, we even talked philosophy. I can’t even imagine how old he is, but it gives him an interesting perspective.
His name isn’t really Axel, of course. It’s a “Sympathy for the Devil” reference, and he really didn’t strike me as a Jagger. I don’t know his real name. I never want to know.
I didn’t know his true form, either. He was too intelligent to be a Scuttle or a Snot. The most Snots could manage was the occasional menacing belch. I was pretty sure he was a Skin; possibly even a Shirt. The beast and humanoid demons were equally nasty to deal with, for various reasons, but Axel could fit either profile.
I’ve been told there is a fifth class of demon, above even the Shirts. Those would be the actual angels who fell from Heaven once upon a time. I don’t know anyone who has seen one. It may be our own champion version of an urban legend.
This of course begs the question, do I believe it? Y’know, I can probably believe there’s a God out there-big G and everything. But why he’d want to take a close personal interest in this ant farm down here, I don’t know. There are demons, so I suppose at least at one time, there had to have been angels. But this is Missouri, the Show Me state. So until I see it, I’ll file it in the maybe pile.
Regardless, Axel was no angel. I was certain of that.
Mira was getting shoes on Hurricane Annabelle when I finally made it back inside. I frowned a bit. “You girls have big plans today?”
“I’m going to work with Mommy!”
Mira nodded. “Yes, but we’re not going to color in anything but our coloring books this time, are we?”
The red pigtails bobbed as Annabelle nodded. “I promise.”
I scrubbed the dirt off my hands in the kitchen sink. “Mir, I could probably take her today. You can just sit behind the counter at the store and rest. Dee could do the heavy stuff.” I should know better. Nothing is going to get my wife to stubborn- up like my implying she can’t do something.
“I’m fine, and Anna and I are going to have a fun day.” It was that “Are we clear?” voice. You know, the one that does not invite further argument. “What are your plans for the day?”
“I guess I’m going to head over to Marty’s, see if he’s got my gear ready. I’ll probably have to go out late tonight, too.”
“You still need to get your mother a present, while you’re out,” she reminded me.
“I’m gonna call Cole, see what he got her. I don’t want to duplicate.” If my baby brother had ponied up for something big, maybe I could just split the cost with him and it could be a joint gift. I really suck at this whole gift-giving thing.
I got the girls out the door and on the way to Mira’s bookstore, but I really wasn’t happy about it. Mira should have stayed home and regained her strength today. Nice to know my wife listens to me.
I went to pull on some real clothes and get my hair under control. The day’s T-shirt said I’M MEAN BECAUSE YOU’RE STUPID. Add jeans and a ponytail, and you had the all-purpose uniform. I tucked my cell phone into my pocket. Ivan hadn’t called back, and I was starting to get worried-well, more worried than before. The scrying was ominous, at the very best, and no matter what I’d told Mira, I didn’t think Miguel had survived that battle.
I was no shrink, but even I knew that worrying without action accomplished nothing. Since I could take no action at the moment, I decided to run errands instead. Regardless of Miguel’s fate, work was still work and staying alive was pretty high on my priority list. I’d start that process by getting my gear back from Marty. The rest… Well, everything else pretty much had to wait until I touched base with Nelson Kidd.
I didn’t figure he’d wimp out. It took guts to come so far and admit so much. People like that don’t cave. I didn’t expect anyone to back out once they’d asked me for help, but I always gave them the choice. Who knows, someday someone might surprise me.
To occupy my mind, I made a few more ticks on my mental to-do list. If Kidd was still willing to go through with it, I’d be summoning a demon tonight, and that required advance planning. You don’t just walk into a demon summoning unprepared. I’d done that. To say it didn’t end well is the edited- for-TV version. I’m damn lucky to still have my soul and all working organs and appendages.
7
Once upon a time, when Mira and I were still in college and we lived in the only ratty apartment we could afford, we had some bachelor neighbors. They were rowdy, uncouth, and basically good guys. Eventually, we got older, moved out of the mold-infested apartment building, started doing the whole grown-up responsible shtick. But we never lost touch. Marty and Will are still my two best friends in the world, and I exploit them shamelessly.
Marty is a walking anachronism. He’s a welder by trade, but a blacksmith by passion. He wears a kilt whenever he can get away with it. The man doesn’t even own a TV. I mean, do you know how hard it is to not only find a blacksmith, but one who knows more than horseshoes and yard ornaments? It’s a dying art. We’re a dying breed, both of us men out of our time. That’s probably why I get along with him so well.
It was a fifteen-minute drive to his house, and in that time I crossed from neatly mowed suburbia into nearly rural territory. Yards in this neighborhood bordered on fields and pastures, and the once- paved streets had long since gone to gravel. The last event of note here happened last summer when some cattle got loose and spawned a seven-mile low-speed chase. (Rumors of my alleged involvement in that bovine escape are highly exaggerated.)
I parked in the front yard and waved to Marty’s wife, Melanie, as she pulled out of their drive. “He in bed yet?”
She rolled down her window. “Nah, he’s out in the shed. There’re pancakes left in the fridge if you’re hungry.”
“Thanks, Mel!” I must look positively emaciated. People are always trying to feed me.
Marty worked nights, so I had even odds of catching him before he went to bed for the day. It seemed to be my lucky day so far. I could hear the static spit of the arc welder as I walked around the house to the workshop.