Bad Grace (Watcher Chronicles Book 1) (2 page)

Now here he was, driving through the Sex Quarter, a part of the city that encompassed about a square mile of sex clubs, porn shops, brothels and every filthy, depraved, despicable, not to mention unholy form of behavior you could possibly think of. The streets here were even more packed than in the rest of the city. The Sex Quarter was like the G-spot of the city, always stimulated, always hungry for more. The place never stopped, even in the daytime, although it wasn’t quite as alive in the day as it was at night. The demons loved the place. Full of easy prey and a chance to indulge afterwards with whatever tickled their fancy, which was usually another unsuspecting victim to kill, possess, con, use or generally abuse in some way. It was the mission of the demons to tarnish everything that they touched with their blackened souls.

Most of them anyway. Some were less bad in their evil ways. The mood Frank was in as he pulled up outside a strip club called Demon Ecstasy, they were all bad news.

Every last one of them.

CHAPTER 3

The only good thing about having to meet someone in a strip joint, Frank thought, was the fact that he could get a drink finally. The drive here—the manic activity of the city itself—had all but sobered him up. Sober wasn’t a state he liked to spend too long in these days.

The club he was in was fairly typical of the many other strip joints condensed into the Sex Quarter. Dark. Loud music playing. Annoying drunks yelling at the naked girls dancing on the stages. At least they were playing rock music, even if it was eighties cock rock.

Frank sat at the bar next to a couple of older guys in suits who were eying up the half-naked waitresses walking around serving drinks to people at the tables and in the more private booths. He didn’t have to look at them to know they were financial guys from uptown. Filth attracted filth after all.

The barman was a young guy with one of those long hipster beards and impeccably greased hair. Everything about him was impeccable in fact, almost the opposite of Frank. The barman’s muscles bulged from his black T-shirt. “What can I get you, man?” he asked.

Frank was about to ask for a double Jack when the barman’s eyes changed from brown to yellow. The guy’s a werewolf, he thought.

Frank didn’t have to say anything. The look of recognition in his eyes was enough for the barman to go from laid back and relaxed to looking suddenly nervous, fearful even. Maybe a touch of instinctive aggression in there too.

“Relax kid, will you?” Frank said. “I only want a drink. Double Jack. Neat.”

The barman nodded slowly as he began to relax again, went to get Frank his drink.

Beside Frank, the two suits got his attention when he heard one of them talk about “the bum next to us at the bar”, ending with the question, “Why do they even let scumbags like that in here anyways? Isn’t there a policy against letting bums into strip joints?”

Frank set his jaw as he waited for the barman to bring him his drink. He tried to ignore the fact that he could feel himself being gawked at. Frank didn’t like being the center of attention, especially when that attention was from a couple of arrogant crooks in suits.

“On the house,” the barman said as he placed a double Jack in front of Frank.

“Thanks,” Frank said as he picked up the glass and downed the contents in one. He slammed the glass down on the bar, maybe a little too hard. The barman thought Frank was pissed at him. He saw the rising violence in Frank’s eyes, visibly shrank back from it. “I’ll have the same again.”

Frank stood, took a long weary breath and turned to face the dicks in suits to his left. The one nearest Frank was a guy in his late thirties, tanned like he was just back from the Bahamas or somewhere, wearing a suit that looked like it cost more than Frank’s whole wardrobe. He smirked at Frank for a second before saying, “What’s the problem buddy? You lost or something?” He raised his smooth chin towards Frank. “The dumpster’s out the back.”

The other suit burst out laughing, looked like he was about to fall off his stool. The suit who spoke to Frank in the first place wasn’t laughing. He was staring at Frank, trying to assert his dominance, challenging Frank to make a comeback.

Frank was never one to back away from a challenge. Fucking arrogant prick, he thought.

You’d never know to look at Frank in that moment that he was even angered by the suits bad manners and thinly veiled aggression. The art of stoicism was one Frank had long since mastered. He was a blank mask. Unreadable.

On the inside though, he was bursting at the seams. Every emotion that had built up in him that day suddenly wanted out. None of that emotion was good. It was all bad and it would be even worse for the two suits in front of him. He knew what he was about to do was morally questionable, but he wasn’t in a very moral kind of mood. These twats had poked a sleeping viper and they didn’t even know it.

The suit nearest Frank didn’t even have time to react to Frank’s punch. One minute he was sitting on his stool, the next Frank’s fist was slamming into his perfectly shaved jaw, sending him flying off the stool, unconscious before he even crashed down onto the floor.

The other suit had stopped laughing and was staring down in shock at his unconscious friend on the floor. He snapped his head round when he sensed Frank moving towards him, almost toppled back of his stool. Frank caught the guy by his tie before the guy fell off his stool. Then Frank pulled hard on the tie and head butted the guy at the same time, pulverizing the suits nose, knocking him out. He let the guy go and the suit crashed to the floor like he was dead.

Frank sat back down on his stool, picked up his drink, which was waiting for him at the bar. Swallowed half the whiskey inside. Behind him, half naked girls were gasping in shock at the two unconscious punters on the floor.

Frank felt slightly better.

Then he felt a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go asshole!”

He knew it was the bouncers before he even turned around. He was about to cathartically release some more of his bad emotions when he heard a familiar sounding voice say, “It's okay guys, I got this.”

A man appeared beside Frank. Tall, brown skinned, mid to late twenties, wearing a shiny dark gray suit and a laconic smile on his face. All that was just window dressing, however. Underneath it all, he was a demon. Frank didn’t need to see his real demon face to know that. He just sensed it. “When we spoke on the phone you didn’t mention knocking out my customers,” the demon said.

Frank signaled to the barman, handed the barman his glass. Then he glanced at the demon beside him. “You didn’t mention you were a demon either. I don’t work for demons.” The barman sets another Jack down for Frank, who was starting to feel normal now, which is to say drunk.

“Work?” the demon said, leaning on the bar with one elbow. “You’re a Watcher Frank, a protector. That’s a calling, not a job.”

“It’s a job to me and I don’t work for demons.” Frank downed the rest of the drink and got off the stool he was sitting on. “Thanks for the drinks.” He nodded at the trash on the floor. “In the future, watch who you let in here.”

“I think you should hear what I have to say, Frank,” said the demon as he took a step towards him. “You’ve come all this way. At least join me for a drink in my office so I can explain things.” He smiled. “There will be whiskey.”

Frank stared back at the demon in the fancy suit, the owner of the strip joint they were in. Normally Frank would be able to see the guy’s real demon face. He wasn’t seeing this guy’s though, which meant the demon was purposely blocking him from seeing it. The higher level demons had that ability. Seemed this guy was one of them.

Fuck it, Frank thought. What else have I got to do? Might as well hear what the demon has to say. “One drink,” he said to the demon.

The demon smiled, nodded. “One drink it is.”

CHAPTER 4

The demons office was upstairs in the club, a large rectangular room with a massive window that gave a near total view of the entire club below. The office itself was nothing fancy. White walls, a red couch and a desk with a single chair beside it. There was also another door in the room. Frank figured it led to some private quarters behind the office. Probably a room for the shiny suited demon to have some privacy with his dancers.

“Take a seat,” the demon said, gesturing to the red couch. “My name is Lucas, by the way.”

Frank stood over by the window rather than sit down on the couch. No point in getting too comfortable. He doubted he’d be staying that long. “You got that drink there...Lucas?”

“Sure.” Lucas pulled a bottle of whiskey out of a drawer in the desk, along with two glasses. He poured a sizeable amount into each glass and handed one to Frank, who smelled the whiskey in his glass.

“Expensive,” Frank said before sampling the whiskey. He nodded. “Very nice indeed.”

The demon Lucas just looked at Frank and smiled. Frank noticed he didn’t drink from his own glass, but instead put the glass on the desk and joined Frank by the window. The two of them surveyed the club below through the glass for a moment. “This a nice set up you have here,” Frank said. “Who’d you kill to get it, the guy whose meat suit you’re wearing?”

The demon didn’t know what to say to that. He just shook his head. “Well, you certainly live up to your reputation.”

“Yeah, what reputation would that be?”

“Of a man who cuts through the crap, who gets the job done. I’m hoping you live up to that second one.”

“You’re hoping I can sort out this demon problem you’re having.”

“Indeed I am.”

Frank looked at the demon probably for the first time since they met downstairs. “Let me ask you this. If you have a demon problem, why can’t you sort it out yourself? I mean, you’re a demon after all.”

“It’s not that simple. I can’t really be seen as interfering with the work of other demons.”

The work of other demons. Frank laughed to himself. “Why not?”

“You might find this hard to believe, but I call this world home now. I spent long enough in Hell to know I’d rather be up here.”

Fair enough, Frank thought. Lucas wasn’t the first demon he’d heard say that. A fair few had succumbed to the easy pleasures and less demonic lifestyles earth had to offer. “So what, you expect me to help protect your cushy number, is that it? No thanks.” Frank downed the rest of his drink, was about to put his glass on the desk when the demon Lucas stepped in his way. Frank stared at the demon, thinking he would throw him through the huge window if he made a move.

The demon merely raised his hands and gave Frank a slight smile. “Relax. This isn’t just about me. The problem I have concerns the safety of the whole city. Why do you think I called you?”

Frank walked around the demon and poured himself another drink before planting himself down on the couch. “Okay. You have my full attention. Tell me what’s going on.”

Lucas nodded, put his hands in his pants pockets while he stood over by the window. “There’s a gang of demons running around the city at the moment, deliberately causing havoc, taking over businesses, killing people.”

“What’s new? Isn’t that what you demons do anyway?”

“Not exactly, Frank. You know as well as I do that we mostly influence. Anything beyond that and your kind—Nephilim—step in. Most of the demons on earth stick to that rule.”

“Well, it sure doesn’t seem like it sometimes,” Frank said. “We’re never done trying to keep the monsters here in line.”

“Nonetheless, the gang that I’m talking about is dangerous. They’re only just getting started on their mission to upset the balance. Someone is leading them, organizing them. I’d like for you to find out who that is, Frank.”

The demon seemed sincere, though you never could tell with demons. Frank went mostly on instinct when it came to dealing with monsters and right now his instincts told him this Lucas guy was telling the truth. “So you want me to hunt down the leader of this gang, is that it?”

Lucas nodded. “Yes.”

“And then what? I send whoever it is back to Hell?”

“Yes.”

“What’s your real interest in this? And don’t give me that earth is great crap you gave me a minute ago.”

Lucas narrowed his eyes. A tight smile crossed his face. “I wasn’t lying about that, you know. You ever been to Hell, Frank?”

Frank went quiet for a minute as he thought of Rachel, in Hell right this very moment. “No,” he said.

“If you had, you’d know where I’m coming from. Being a demon in Hell doesn’t make it much easier either.”

Frank just nodded, drank his whiskey.

“I know about your Watcher friend,” Lucas said. “The woman. Rachel, is it?”

Frank had to stop himself from jumping off the couch and kicking the demon through the window. He had no doubt the demon was fast, maybe even a teleporter if he was high level, but Frank was fast too. He’d beaten enough demons to the draw at this stage.

Lucas raised his hands when he saw the look on Frank’s face. “Listen, I only bring that up because these demons I’ve been talking about are going around stealing souls. There’s people walking around out there with no soul, and they don’t even know it. When they die they’ll go straight to Hell, Frank.”

Frank shook his head. “How long has this been going on for? How many souls have they stolen?”

“It’s not that easy to steal a soul. Only top level demons can do it without a ritual first. These demons are using the ritual. My sources tell me they’ve only done it a few times so far, mainly because the ritual itself is fairly complicated and requires some very specific items to work. Getting those items can take a while, but now the gang has apparently found a way to quicken the process. The amount of souls they steal will exponentially increase.”

Frank thought about the people walking around out there with no soul, having no idea it was even missing. He wondered if perhaps he wasn’t one of those people. It damn well felt like it most days. Soul or not, it didn’t matter anyway. He knew he was going to Hell when he died. Given some of the things he’d done, even the good he did as a Watcher wouldn’t cancel those things out. “What exactly happens a person when they lose their soul like that?”