Raw Power: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Demon-Hearted Book 1) (21 page)

I remember the feeling that came over me when, after graduating, I realized there was no high-paying job waiting for me and that I'd have to find some way to pay off my mind-boggling loans. I felt betrayed, like I'd been lied to by society. A college degree was supposed to pave the way towards a higher quality of life, but it wasn't actually that easy.

And so I came to consider myself a victim. And when you think yourself a victim of some far-reaching plot, when it's just you against the predatory student loan companies, well, it gets a little easier to play the part of predator yourself. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and from the very first opportunity I took a hell of a bite out of my fellow dogs.

People like Joe and his mother.

People who were struggling just as much as I was, people who just wanted to make ends meet.

 
I'd met a lot of shady shitheads in my time doing repo work, too. I don't want to make it sound like the targets were all kindly old ladies and hard-working people who'd overextended their finances. But even then, what right did I have to knock in their doors and threaten them? Near the end of my employment there, I'd done some real harsh things, had turned up the heat and put on some rude displays that made me cringe in retrospect. In the moment, it was an easy thing for me to offload, though. There was no guilt involved, because I felt myself to be the victim of yet greater villains. It was
my
situation that was unfair. No one else's suffering even figured into it.

Sitting in Joe's kitchen, I found myself growing misty eyed. I was disgusted with myself and wanted nothing more than to force these thoughts from my mind. I'd spent the past few years being a detestable human being, and even though it was something I needed to reflect on, the kitchen table wasn't exactly the ideal place for it. I guzzled my beer and forced my best, most laid-back grin. “Paid well, though. I will say that.”

Joe shook his head. “Whatever you say, man. Why'd you join the Order, then? What made you want to take on the demon's heart?”

It was my turn to shake my head, and I started laughing. “Oh, that was all just a happy accident, I guess. See, I got mixed up with those witches and they killed me. The guys at the Veiled Order apparently had a demon heart laying around and were just spoiling to use it. Mr. Amundsen put in a good word for me. The rest is history. Hazy, confused history. And you? What happened when they offered you that job?”

“Well,” said Joe, “I didn't really have a choice. They weren't going to let me off easy after I'd brought so much attention to myself with my fire tricks. Figured it made more sense to work with 'em, rather than against them. But, they pay pretty good, too, which helped out with things around here. And then, you know, this is my city.” He looked down at his bottle, now empty, and turned it in his hand. “I grew up here, and I want to give back in some way. Maybe I won't go on to do great things... the people 'round here aren't going to remember my name when I'm gone, of course... but if I can keep monsters like Agatha off the streets, make 'em feel a little more secure when they lay their heads down at night, then I'd like that.”

Thoroughly ashamed with myself already, I didn't need to be hearing this sincere little spiel of his. I threw up my hands, tossing a balled-up napkin at him. “Yeah, yeah, we get it! You're a real swell guy, Joe! Geez, make me feel like a piece of shit, why don't you?” I laughed. “That's real sweet of you, all of that. They're gonna give you the key to the city someday. Maybe the Pope will canonize you.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “You want more spaghetti? I liked it better when you were too busy chewing to run that mouth of yours.”

From the hall, I heard a series of slow footsteps. The two of us turned and saw the bent form of an older woman crossing into the kitchen. Her hair was more salt than pepper, and she used a rubber-tipped cane to get around. She smiled at the two of us as she inched her way in, leaning against one of the counters. “Joe, you didn't tell me you had a friend over. You boys enjoying the spaghetti? Help yourselves, there's plenty more where that came from. I was just coming down to see if the dishes needed done. Want me to fix you some dessert?”

Joe practically jumped out of his chair, walking over to his mother and taking her gently by the arm. “Don't even think about it, ma. I've got it covered. You shouldn't be outta bed anyhow.”

Joe's mother smiled, smacking him on the shoulder gently. “Sorry,” she said to me. “My son likes to fret over me way too much. Thinks I'm made of glass. I'm Margie, it's nice to meet you, uh
―
?”

“Lucian,” said Joe when I didn't respond. “His name is Lucian. I work with him.”

I was frozen, petrified.

Looking across the room at the woman, my eyes swelled with panic and my heart began to quake as though it might erupt through my chest, Vesuvius style.

I recognized this woman, and it only took me an instant's reflection to realize why that was.

Joe's mother had been one of the last people I'd collected from during my time with the repo agency.

TWENTY-NINE

Slipping out of that house not ten minutes after carrying my plate to the sink was a real marvel. Joe wanted to know what the rush was, and I lied, telling him I had an appointment I'd nearly forgotten.

Of course, that was bullshit.

I didn't dare tell him the truth.

Here I was, a wolf in sheep's clothing, sitting in this woman's house, eating her delicious spaghetti. I was incredibly thankful that she didn't seem to recognize me. I remembered her, though. That cane, that grey hair and kind smile. I couldn't say why, but it stuck with me. It'd been a quick job, one of the last ones I'd done. It's not like I'd sucker-punched her or slashed her tires or anything, but I remember delivering one of those stern speeches of mine, demanding to know why it was she hadn't returned our calls. The collection had been over something stupid, minor. A missed payment on an appliance or something like that.

I thanked them both profusely and bid them a good evening before jogging down the road, my face redder than a cherry.

What were the odds? The more I thought about it, they were actually pretty decent; I'd worked my ass off with that agency, knocking on doors, uttering threats, and worse, for years. The further I went, running past the homes and businesses whose owners I used to prey on, I tried to drive the night's events from my mind. I attempted to focus on the meal, on the other conversations, the fact that Joe had warmed up to me a little.

Didn't matter.

I felt like a piece of trash, no better than the hungry rats that raced past an open garbage can to my left.

I stopped and started heaving into a gutter.

A damn awful waste of good spaghetti, let me tell you.

I ran the rest of the way home, feeling like a terrible fever had come over me. I walked into the building, entered my unit without the least bit of fear. All of the seals Kubo had placed for me earlier in the day remained intact, and I knew I could breathe easy inside.

Flopping down on the bed, still fully dressed, I realized I had a lot of thinking to do.

***

In the days that followed, I left home exactly one time, to throw a bag of trash in the overfilled dumpster. The rest of my time was spent sulking around the house in an uncharacteristic depression. The demon in me didn't seem to object to this, and I didn't feel the urge to sprint or wander or fight like I had in the past week. We were content to sit around the apartment, deep in thought, and subsist off of whatever leftovers were in the fridge.

It's a damn awful feeling to realize you aren't what you thought you were.

 
If you'd asked me my opinion of myself some time back, I'd have told you that I was a decent guy. Rough around the edges, sure, and I'd made some real questionable decisions over the years. No doubt that I'd have admitted to a general lack of kindness or compassion, but I'd never thought of myself as a
real
villain. I'd never looked in the mirror and seen a monster.

Well, except for that time, with Dr. Sargasso, when I'd looked into the antique mirror and glimpsed the demon inside of me.

But that was different.

Now? Talking with Joe had really laid it bare, made some things clear to me. For years I'd been on autopilot, functioning with a total victim's mentality and caring only about myself. A little selfishness is one thing, but I'd made a living at hounding and humiliating people, and now that I had a little distance from it all, I didn't recognize the guy who'd done that unsavory work.

 
Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has a skeleton or two in the closet. Having done things like this didn't make me
that
bad a guy, did it?

Don't answer that.

I was a bad dude, the lowest of the low. I get it.

Over the course of some days that all finally sank in, and I got real disgusted with myself. But even my self-pity has limits, and when I'd sufficiently moped and felt guilty over my past, I started considering what I might do in the future to improve.

I was with the Order now. That was one thing. Like Joe, maybe I could make a difference for the people living around here. Keep the community safe by forcing the monsters off of the streets. My thoughts returned to that poor kid the coven had kidnapped. About a week to go before they did horrific things to him in the name of their debauched magic.

Maybe I'd done foul work in the past, but to that kid, I could be a hero. If we could locate the witches, I'd use every trick in my arsenal to bring them down. Returning that kid to his parents and preventing any others from suffering at the hands of Mater Agatha was the first step in what would be a very long path of atonement.

 
I was sitting on the couch, vacantly watching reruns of
Friends
, when the work-issue phone started to buzz with ferocity. Grabbing it up, I answered breathlessly, like I'd been waiting for it to ring all day. “Hello?”

“You at home?” asked Kubo. I could hear his blinker clicking on in the background. He was calling from the SUV. “One of our informants has a possible lead for us. I need to pick you up so that the two of us can scope it out. I have a feeling you'll be working closely with this informant in the future, so it's best you meet him now.”

I ran a hand through my hair, finding it tousled and matted with days of accumulated oil. “Sure, yeah. I'm home.” I sniffed at my shirt, cringing at the sour cologne of cheese dust and curdled Haagen-Dazs that clung to me in abundance. “I need a few minutes to clean myself up. That OK?”

“Make it quick,” replied Kubo before hanging up unceremoniously.

I made a run for the shower.

THIRTY

“This informant of yours is fully human, right? Not half-human, half-weasel or something similarly fucked up, right? Because-- and I don't want this to come across as ignorant or intolerant or whatever-- I can't say I'm too crazy about the circles you apparently run in. Old Mona came to me as quite a surprise.”

Kubo turned, pressing a solid, black boot to the accelerator and speeding into the turn so hard that I was whipped to the side. “It isn't much further now.”

That didn't bode well. He wasn't answering my question.

I straightened the collar of my blue Polo and peered out the window. We'd been driving about ten minutes, but had gone a little ways out of Detroit, taking a number of back roads whose names I'm hazy on. Another ten minutes of silent driving and we were in a tiny town called Mitchum, which I'd only ever heard brief mentions of. I knew that there wasn't a whole lot in Mitchum, and that only a thimble's worth of people actually lived there. My impressions of the place saw these bits of hearsay ring true, because as we started through the tiny settlement I struggled to find any businesses, aside from gas stations and decrepit-looking convenience stores, that weren't completely shuttered.

Turning onto a stunted gravel drive, Kubo parked the SUV in front of a building whose door and windows were flimsily boarded. It wasn't a very large building, about the size of your average fast food joint, and looked like it'd been closed for at least fifteen or twenty years, based on the way the brown paint on the exterior had chipped and faded. Its general outlines had been withered due to the strain of many seasons without repair.

Kubo shut off the car and stepped out, smoothing out his tie and jacket while sizing up the entrance. He was wearing his shades today, square and very dark, and he let them droop down the length of his nose as he stepped forth to appraise the blocked door. There were a few sheets of thin wood nailed across the threshold, though the job was a clumsy one and such panels weren't going to keep anyone out. Small animals like squirrels and racoons could probably slip in through the breaks in the panels, too.

As Kubo made a beeline for the door, I watched confusedly from the SUV before giving chase. “What are we doing here?” I asked, my feet kicking up a cloud of dust as I shuffled through the gravel. “This place looks like hell. Probably infested with God knows what.”

Kubo was touching the panels of wood, giving them a slight shake. Suddenly, the panel on top swung out of the way neatly, providing just enough space for one to climb in, should anyone prove stupid enough to enter such a dilapidated old building.

Draping one leg over the bottom panel, Kubo stepped in awkwardly and shot me a look from behind his shades that said “You'd better keep up.”

I went in after him, not a little nervous. “So, what is this? An old Taco Bell?”

Kubo removed his glasses. Scanning the large room, which might have once been a club or dining room, judging by the stacks of dusty chairs and tables that lined the corners, he started towards the rear, where there was a narrow wooden door. The way was lit by the bits of natural light that came in through the gaps in the boards and some few breaks in the ceiling. It was perilously dark, however. “This was once a bar. It was called Willard's Speakeasy, for its original owner, Thomas Willard. During the Prohibition years, the basement of this establishment was run as a speakeasy. After Prohibition, the whole place was run as a bar and did good business for many years.” He opened the wooden door, the stubborn, warped frame groaning as he did so.