Roaring Blood (Demon-Hearted Book 2)
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Authors: Ambrose Ibsen
Roaring Blood
By Ambrose Ibsen
Copyright © 2016 by Ambrose Ibsen
All rights reserved.
This one's for Kentaro, Hisako, Inazawa and Mukai.
And maybe it's for Seiji, too.
ONE
I took a deep breath.
This was it, the moment of truth. If I fucked things up here, then it was all over. There was simply too much on the line for that. I needed to deliver, to bring my A-game. Still, my hands were shaking a little.
A bead of sweat trickled down my forehead and into my eyes. Gritting my teeth, I mustered all of my focus. “Joe... this is it, man.”
Time seemed to stop for a moment as the ICEE machine whirred to life and a stream of red slurry poured neatly into my cup.
Joe yawned. “A little dramatic, no?” He fanned himself with one of the magazines on the nearest rack, pacing behind me. His pompadour had fallen loose, his hair slick with sweat. “It's just a drink, dude. You're not defusing a bomb.”
“No!” I replied, shooting him a sharp glance in my periphery. “This is my patented 'no-spill' technique. See, you put the lid on first and watch it real close to make sure you fill it to the brim. If you time it just right, it won't spill over and you'll fill the cup to one-hundred percent capacity. You get your money's worth when there's no empty space in the dome lid. To do it any other way is un-American.” I smirked as my cup was filled to the bursting point and then pulled it away, burying a red straw inside. “You're the one who's never even tried an ICEE before. I'm a little embarrassed to know you, if we're being honest.”
Yanking a cup from the dispenser, Joe began to haphazardly fill it with blueberry-flavored drink. Bastard didn't even bother snapping on the dome lid first. “It's too hot for your bullshit today, Lucy,” he said with a sigh. He straightened his leather jacket a little, probably wishing he'd left it at home.
It wasn't merely a hot day; we were looking at near-record-breaking temperatures in Detroit. Though the sun had gone down the heat lingered on, radiating off of the asphalt as though it were molten underneath. Joe and I had met up a few hours ago, intending to hit up a house party one of my friends was throwing, and after filling up on fast food I'd demanded we stop at the convenience store for a quick ICEE. The air conditioning in the place felt great.
And, you know, the chick working the counter wasn't too hard on the eyes, either.
While Joe made a mess of his blue ICEE I turned and shot her a little smile. She was leaning over the counter disinterestedly, head propped up on her palm. She didn't seem to notice me. Too deep in her thoughts, I figured.
“Hey,” I said, tapping Joe's shoulder. “Ten bucks I can score her number.” Then, turning, I caught a glimpse of Joe's ICEE.
He was trying to force a sticky lid over the top of the cup, which burgeoned with half-melted blue frost. The stuff ran down his wrists as he pushed on the lid with a grunt. “There,” he said. “Not half bad, eh?”
Tearing a handful of napkins out of the nearest dispenser, I shoved them into his hand. “That ICEE is an abortion, Joe. What the hell happened to technique, huh? I can't take you anywhere, you damned animal.”
Joe grinned, the bluish liquid dripping steadily from the seams of his cup. He licked up a little bit. “I can see why you like these. They're pretty good.”
Like a mother leading a disobedient kid, I took Joe by the arm and hauled him to the counter. I set down my ICEE and plucked my wallet out of my back pocket. “Watch this,” I told Joe, clearing my throat and facing the cashier with a winning grin. “Hey, there.”
One look at Joe's mess of a cup and the rings of blue liquid it was leaving behind on her counter was enough to contort her bored expression into something, let's say, more
hostile
.
“My, uh, friend here has never had an ICEE before,” I started, nudging Joe with my elbow. “It's like he's been living in a cave the past twenty years, you know? Doesn't even know the right technique.”
She looked at us in turn and then punched a couple of keys on the register. She tapped them hard, like she wanted to break them, and the corners of her ruby red lips sank into a frown. “That'll be four bucks.” Her hand paused over the drawer, her matching red fingernails rapping an impatient tune on the plastic case.
OK, she wasn't taking the bait.
Better to be more direct.
“So, what time do you get off?” I asked, handing her four crisp dollars.
Joe arched a brow as he picked up his sticky cup. “You serious, man?” he muttered under his breath. He was making his way to the door when the cashier finally replied.
Taking one look at the messy ICEE station, she gave her shoulders a little toss. “Dunno,” she said flatly. “Guess it depends on how long it takes me to clean up your boyfriend's messes.”
Ouch.
Chuckling nervously, I picked up my cup and nodded. “Heh, cool. Have a... uh, good night.”
Joe laughed all the way out the door.
Exiting the convenience store we were hit by a wave of pure heat. The smell of asphalt came in thick, and my skin tingled with the promise of sweat.
I'm going to be honest with you: I hate the summer. I'm much more of an autumn or spring guy. Turns out that housing a demon in my body didn't magically give me a tolerance to the heat. Go figure. I'm still a little sore about that. I mean, demons live in hellfire, don't they? Surely hellfire's a lot hotter than a summer in Detroit?
Joe took a noisy slurp from his cup. “Man, you're just an expert in all sorts of things these days, aren't you, Lucy?” He laughed to himself, wiping his lips and taking off his jacket. Throwing it over one shoulder, he went on. “You kill a few witches, a few werewolves, and suddenly you think you're an expert in mixology. And Casanova, to boot.”
I didn't have anything nice to say in reply, so I just took a long pull from my ICEE.
The past month or so had been pretty wild, and I guess I understood where Joe was coming from. After weathering two cases with the Veiled Order and making an ass-load of money, I was riding pretty high. I mean, I was living debt-free now, and hunting down supernatural baddies paid really damn well. There wasn't a twenty-something in Detroit making the kind of money I made for a single night's work. When you took into consideration the
nature
of said work, you could understand why it was starting to go to my head.
I was practically a superhero.
It hadn't been a cake-walk, but we'd taken down the coven of Mater Agatha for my first assignment. From there we'd been assigned to a fresh case, tracking a pair of werewolf twins through the city. This second case had actually been a fair bit easier than the first. For starters, werewolves, though strong, aren't nearly as clever as witches. They're brutes, through and through, and their bag of tricks doesn't run nearly so deep. Hell, it was only my second case, but after my tussle with the Lycans I felt pretty secure in the knowledge that their entire race was boring and predictable. They'd put up a hell of a fight, but when it comes to raw power it's hard to top a demon.
The poor werewolves learned that the hard way.
For their pelts I won a payday that would have made most lottery-winners jealous and decided to spend it judiciously.
On a Corvette.
“Why didn't we drive?” I moaned, shuffling onto the sidewalk and leaving the bright glow of the convenience store behind. “I feel like I'm melting.”
“Damn, Lucy. For a demon you sure whine a lot. You were the one who wanted to walk, remember? Your buddy's place doesn't have any good parking, and you didn't want to go all
Exorcist
on someone for bumping into the 'Vette.”
“Ah, yeah.” This was a little shindig thrown by an old university buddy of mine, Ken. Ken was the only art history student I knew who'd scored a proper job upon leaving school. We'd graduated at the same time, and my grades had been a wee bit higher than his, but Ken's dad was friends with the director of the local museum and in the end that connection had won out. He'd landed a job and was now responsible for curating different exhibits. The two of us weren't best buds or anything like that; if anything, since school, we'd sort of become rivals. These days when the two of us talked, I always sensed an air of superiority in his tone.
He'd
gotten a job with his degree.
I'd
gotten a job collecting debts.
Heh. Ken could keep his shitty museum job for all I cared. Little did he know I'd moved on from my old line of work and become a frigging monster hunter. I'd brought Joe along with me because I wanted someone down to Earth there, someone to break up the banal hipsterish banter that haunted Ken's parties without fail.
Oh, and because I figured he might make a decent wing-man.
See, ever since joining up with the Veiled Order I'd been having something of a dry spell. It'd been a couple of months since I'd had a good time with a member of the fairer sex. So tonight, at this party, I was determined to change that. Work had kept me pretty busy lately, it was true, but the real issue was that I kept striking out. Disinterested convenience store girl was just the latest in a long line of pickup disasters.
You'd think that having a demon inside of you might tip the scales in your favor when picking up girls. This is Gadreel we're talking about, no less; one of the Grigori, who has a
legendary
affinity for human women. But, no. Even though the demon's powers allowed me to call down lightning from the heavens and spit acid, Gadreel wasn't helping me get laid.
“So, this buddy of yours is a douche, huh?” started Joe.
I was about to respond when something curious came into view just ahead.
We'd built some distance from the convenience store and were now walking down a quiet street. From somewhere far away a dog barked. A breeze whistled by, momentarily cooling the sweat on my skin and making the hairs on my arms stand up. Ever since Gadreel moved in, my intuition had been on fire. I could usually perceive a threat long before the first blow was struck, could point out dangers from a distance, and I'd learned better than to just discount these hunches.
Well, something told me, deep-down, that the guy crossing the street just ahead of us with a long, shambling stride was bad news.
I stopped in my tracks and watched the individual creep across the street. He was headed in the opposite direction, didn't even spare us a passing glance. It was only when he walked beneath a streetlight that I got a good look at him, and when I did I was faced with a conundrum.
I knew the guy.
Squinting in the darkness and taking a pensive sip of my ICEE, I found the figure to be an old high school teacher of mine. A Mr. Duncan... Or was it Mr. Dukakis? Eh, something like that. It was a “D” name, I was certain.
The fella didn't look so good. He was walking with an extremely noticeable limp, one of his feet turned at an unnatural angle so that it dragged behind him as he went. The ankle was probably busted. His clothes were extremely dirty, torn up and ragged, and his skin was pale. Every step caused him great pain, and he grunted, shuffling off to God knew where.
I balled my fist and turned to Joe, nodding at the guy. “You feel that?” I asked.
“Feel what?” Joe was apparently clueless, sipping at his drink. “He's just a homeless guy or something. Leave him be.”
I watched the figure wander off into the darkness. He disappeared around a corner but the sounds of his shuffling advance took a little while longer to dissipate. “He looks just like an old teacher of mine. Don't remember his name, but I could have sworn it was him,” I said. “Got a real bad vibe, for some reason.”
Mr. Dimitri, was it? Hell, I couldn't remember. If I thought about it real hard I could recall the way he'd once made me stay after class in third-period English for replacing all of the proper nouns in my textbook with the word “penis”. He'd always been a strict type, not at all friendly with the students. I was surprised to see him wandering the streets like a hobo, but I wasn't too torn up about it, either.
