My gaze returned to the front just in time to keep me from annihilating a small ratlike dog as it ran into the street yapping at my wheels. I slammed on the brakes, and rested my head against the steering wheel until my heart stopped marching double-time in my chest.
Well, that rather eliminated any chance of last night being a random act of drunken stupidity. In a way, I was relieved. I mean, for whatever reason, someone was rather annoyed with me. But at least that meant there wasn’t some maniac on the road, running hapless people into ditches. Mira was safe; the girls at work were safe. The question was, should I report it or not? I mean, if this was work related-champion work, not retail work-what would I say?
I concocted and discarded at least twenty different stories on the way home, and none of them were even remotely plausible. By default, I guess I would just keep it to myself-no use upsetting Mira.
My power steering whined as I pulled into my garage, mocking me and almost muffling the ring of my cell phone. “Hello?”
“Dawson.” Ivan sounded as if he’d been gargling gravel. “It is being morning there, tak? I am not to be waking you?”
“No, no, I’m up. What’s going on?”
I could almost hear him shaking his grizzled white head. “It is being muchly difficult here. And I am thinking that the news will not be good.”
8
I rummaged through the kitchen to fix myself some kind of sustenance as Ivan talked. Surely any and all paranoia I was experiencing was a result of hunger. That was the ticket.
The leftovers were piled neatly in the fridge, dated and color coded. My wife is sometimes a bit anal, but I love her anyway.
“Miguel was to be entertaining a client three weeks ago. He was to be meeting them when he traveled north to visit family. A town called Mascarena. He was to be telling Rosaline this, but he was not speaking the name.” Ivan’s voice grumbled in my ear, sounding rather like a great disgruntled bear.
I didn’t find Miguel’s actions unusual. I don’t tell Mira whom I work for, either, most of the time. I operate under the assumption that she’s safer not knowing. “He didn’t tell his brothers or anything? Not even where he was going?”
Ivan has a powerful frown. I could hear it over the phone, could picture the deeply creased forehead beneath his stark white crew cut. “There is to being some language difficulty here, but, I believe the brothers are not to be knowing. The family in the north; they are being afraid to speak, even to Miguel’s family. It is possible they are not to be understanding that I mean no harm. I am told I am to being intimidating.”
He was probably right. No one would ever mistake Ivan for anything other than military or law enforcement, and neither was popular in Mexico, especially near the border. Add to that his horrible English and their native Spanish, and it gave a whole new meaning to “language barrier.” “Look, I have a client in town myself, but once I’ve settled him, Mira and I can fly down. She can translate for you.” Mira was amazing with languages, and Spanish was just one of several she spoke fluently.
“That is not being necessary. We are to be making do with what we have. The family is to being most hospitable to me.”
Of course they were. Miguel’s mother often reminded me of my own. Every woman was her daughter and every man was her son, even if they already had white hair and wrinkles when she met them. No doubt, Ivan was finding himself mothered to death by the feisty Mexican widow.
“Well, is there anything we can do?” I pinned the phone against my shoulder so I could slap a few slices of leftover pork roast on some bread-good stuff.
He sighed heavily. While I joked about Ivan’s being the old man, it occurred to me for the first time that he truly was getting old. He’d been battling demons longer than I’d been alive. No other champion had as many kills to his credit as Ivan. “His-what is word?-his weapon is not to being returned. I am to be worrying much about this.”
“He uses a machete,” I supplied absently. Not returning a weapon was against the rules.
I’ve never seen a losing battle, but from what I hear, demons don’t leave bodies lying around. One of the first things Ivan taught us to negotiate was for some proof of death to be delivered. A head or hand is a bit macabre, so we usually opted for our weapon to be presented to the person of our choice. Beats a singing telegram.
“Miguel wouldn’t have forgotten that clause. He’s been at this longer than I have.” Ten years longer, for all that Miguel was seven years my junior. It was a family matter, with him, handed down through the generations. He’d lost his father and one older brother to it already.
“ Tak, I am to be knowing this. But it is not to be found all the same.”
“Is it possible he isn’t dead?” Mira’s scrying hadn’t been one hundred percent conclusive, though I’d never heard of a demon taking a hostage. They didn’t worry about our fleshly vessels, just the sweet goodies inside. Maybe souls really do taste like Peeps.
“I am not knowing. I have never to be seeing this before.” He hesitated a moment before going on. “Dawson, being careful, tak? Some things are to being incorrect. I am not happy.”
I wasn’t happy, either, for more reasons than I could count. “Yeah, I’ll be careful. You know me.”
“This is what is to be worrying me.”
“You’re just a regular comedian aren’t you?” I had to smile, but I knew Ivan wasn’t joking. I wasn’t entirely sure he knew how.
“Is Mira being there?”
“No, she’s at work,” I mumbled through a mouthful of sandwich.
“When she is coming home, perhaps to be having her call Rosaline? I think she would like to hear from Mira.”
“I’ll let her know.”
“I will be in touch.” He disconnected the call before I could say good-bye. It really was rather annoying. I’d have to stop doing that to people.
I finished my lunch because I knew I’d need the energy later tonight, but it just didn’t taste good anymore.
My next pass through the kitchen was business related. Nelson Kidd was never going to say, “Y’know what? I screwed up, so we’ll just let the demon have my soul.” And even if he did, I couldn’t live with myself after that. Deep down, I knew this. So tonight, I would be summoning a demon for negotiations.
Your average denizen of Hell is just that-stuck there with only other demons and Jerry Springer reruns for entertainment. Sure, there are a few texts floating around the world with actual demon names, and every so often some amateur magician tries to summon one forth. (It does work, although it rarely turns out like the summoner intended.) Other than that, vacation options from Hell are pretty limited.
However, once in a very great while, a demon gets enough power to come across on its own. Then, they wander around, gather up souls, and solidify their power base until someone like me comes along and puts the hurt on them.
Regardless of how they get to this plane, they’re usually rather pleased to be here. I’m guessing Hell’s not that scenic, and the chance to get out and stretch their appendages is welcome. On top of that, they get a chance at another soul. Who wouldn’t be happy to take the trip to the real world? But y’know how you always have that one tourist, usually sitting next to you on the plane, who just bitches and gripes about everything? They have those in demonkind, too, and they get real snippy about being ordered around.
Since I thought of myself as an air marshal on a demon’s vacation flight, it was only fitting that I equip myself with all the necessary measures to control a rowdy passenger. And I was all out of demon-begone.
It’s a simple recipe of Ivan’s devising, and all the ingredients can be found in an average kitchen cabinet-well, at least in our kitchen cabinet. In truth, we’re the only people I know who buy both cayenne pepper and cumin in bulk.
You take a bunch of cayenne pepper and a bunch of cumin. I operate on the idea that more is better, so long as it’ll still spray through the spritzer thingy. Dump that into a bottle of water, attach a spray nozzle, shake well. Squirt your pesky demon like a bad puppy and it usually departs posthaste. Do not stand downwind of your spray. It hurts just as bad in your own eyes-not that I would know anything about that, of course.