“A crude tactic, I agree, but most effective.” He stood up, snapping his briefcase shut. “You can keep that, by the way. I have another copy.”
I tore the paper into tiny bits just to be petty, letting them flutter to the cement floor. “You know what? I hate getting in trouble for something I didn’t do.”
He barely had time to blink before the punch landed, sprawling him on the ground in a tangle of gangly limbs and office chairs. He flailed about in total shock for a few moments, one hand clapped to his face.
I eyed my bruised knuckles with a grimace. “Oh, come on, I didn’t even hit you that hard.”
“You broke my node, you don of a bitch!” His voice came out nasal, and blood trickled between his fingers. He fumbled a handkerchief out of his pocket.
“Did I? Damn. I was going for a black eye.” Yeah, it wasn’t my smartest moment. Not the best example of bushido, either. I should never have attacked a weaker man. There’s no honor in that.
Verelli finally clambered to his feet, red-spotted handkerchief clutched to his abused proboscis. “I’ll have you up on charges. I’ll-”
“Get a restraining order? Do that. Now you need one.” Later, I’d regret it. Later, I’d kick myself all over for being so impulsive. But just now, it felt really damn good. “And if you come anywhere near my friends and family again, a broken nose will be the least of your worries.”
The agent made a scurrying retreat, briefcase clutched to his chest, and I slumped on the cot. Way to go, Jess. I was so screwed. Verelli would most definitely bring assault charges against me, and not even Cole was going to be able to keep me out of jail this time. I banged my head against the wall a few times.
Somehow, the game ended without the police coming to clap me in irons. My friends-and I used the term loosely, at this point-came to get me somewhere around eight o’clock, and awarded me the Great Foam Finger Award for “sticking it to the man.” While security was willing to buy that my little toxic vapor incident was an accident, my buddies were not. They’d have just shit if they knew about my decking Verelli. I elected not to mention it, and I ushered them out of the stadium as quickly as possible.
“Dude, you made the news! There were camera crews all over the place for the rest of the game!” Will, in particular, seemed rather jubilant over events. “There were chicks fighting, and shirts ripped off and boobs everywhere. It was great!”
I cringed. “Mira’s going to kill me.”
Marty was perhaps a bit more sympathetic, being the other married man of the group. “They didn’t use your name, as far as I know. You should be in the clear.”
Oh, if only he knew. I might have been off the hook for the riot, but there was one very disgruntled sports agent out there with an ax to grind. And Mira was not going to be amused when the cops showed up at the house to arrest me. In fact, I’d probably be safer with them than with her. Being bashed in the skull with a cast-iron skillet is not a noble death. And I had at least a good hour to ponder my bleak fate as we sat in the parking lot, waiting to get out.
Marty, having been up for nearly twenty- four hours, crashed in the backseat and began snoring almost immediately. If you’ve ever seen the backseat of a PT Cruiser, you will appreciate it when I say that Marty is a musician. It means he can sleep anywhere.
Will and I sat in the front, illuminated by the green glow of his dash lights, listening to the sound track from some anime movie. The taillights of the car in front of us strobed red every time the line inched forward another few feet.
Finally-and I knew it had to be driving him nuts to wait even that long-Will asked, “So… you saw one, didn’t you? I mean, that’s why you went tearing up the stairs?”
I glanced back to be certain Marty was still sleeping. Yeah, Marty knew, but… I’m not sure he really believed. That was okay with me. At least one of us ought to sleep well at night. “Yeah, I saw one.”
“Aw, man!” Will pounded on the steering wheel once with his fist. “I wish I could see one.”
“No. You don’t.”
Will drove for me. He flew to all areas of the country with me. He patched me up with his EMT training, even going so far as to duct tape my insides to my insides once, to get me to the hospital. That was how I justified asking for his help. But I kept him at a distance, for the challenges. He didn’t need to have demon names flitting around inside his skull. He didn’t need to see the horrors that existed just outside human perception. It was the only way I could repay him, really.
“So did you do some of that kung fu shit and kick his ass?” Despite the injuries he’d helped repair, Will still had some grand Hollywood vision of what being a champion entailed. No doubt, he dreamed of epic battles across rooftops with me dodging bullets and flinging ninja stars.
“No. Just sprayed him with Mace. He left.” The line of cars in front of us seemed impossibly long. I suddenly didn’t want to be in the car, discussing my altercation with Axel. Would Will even know if he’d met Axel? Would he recognize the danger?
“Well, that’s kinda anticlimactic. I heard there was a big brawl and stuff.” The doofus actually looked disappointed.
“Other people were fighting. We were just talking.” Other people would have taken the “I don’t really wanna talk about it” hint. But not Will.
He gave me an odd look. “What do you talk to demons about?”
I shrugged. “Souls. Hell. Stuff like that.” Not entirely true. I don’t think Axel and I had ever talked about Hell. And we talked about way more than souls.
He’d been almost frantic-Axel, I mean, not Will-wanting to tell me something. “What is it, Lassie? Timmy fell in the well?” I doubt Axel would appreciate the similarity. What did he know that was so damn important? It had to be about Miguel and Guy. Axel knew what had happened to them, which meant it was more than just an unfortunate coincidence. And that, sadly, was what I had believed all along. Sometimes, I hate being right.
“Dude! You talk about Hell? What’s it like? Have you seen it?”
I blinked at him, then reached over and smacked him lightly upside the back of the head. “Are you nuts?”
“Ow.” He rubbed his head and glared at me, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “I was just askin’…”
To our right, horns blared and voices shouted. I wondered if it was some of the earlier combatants, meeting for round two. Axel may have nudged them over the edge, but he couldn’t create such rage out of nothing. At least, I didn’t think he could. I hadn’t thought he could assume human form, either, and we’d seen where that had gotten me. I hate being wrong, too.
“So… you need me to drive for you?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“I didn’t think you sat around talking to demons for fun, dude.” He pointed to my tattooed right hand. “And that usually means you got work to do. And then, I got work to do.”
Will has always been strangely pragmatic about the oddities in my life. “Two weeks from now. Night of the full moon.”
He nodded and finally got the car pulled out onto the street, where a traffic cop waved us on through the red light. If Will noticed that I ducked down in the seat, he didn’t mention it. “That’ll give me time to stock up on supplies. You’re not expecting any burns this time, are you?”
“No, not this time.” In all fairness, the fire fight-in the most literal sense-had gone heavily in my favor. I barely got singed, that time. Well, and lost my eyebrows. And burned my knuckles. And lost maybe two inches of my hair. It was a good day!
“Just a normal hack ’n’ slash, hmm?” He nodded his head in time to the music as we pulled out onto the highway and headed north.
“Yeah. For whatever ‘normal’ is.”
“Truth, dude.”
We rode in silence for several miles before he spoke again. “So, can you beat him? The one you were talking to?”
Now that was an interesting thought. If it ever came down to it, could I beat Axel? I was never cocky enough to answer with a “Sure thing!” about any of my challenges. But once, I might have been more confident where Axel was concerned. Now… I wasn’t sure.