Surreal Ecstasy (24 page)

Call me or come over anytym. I
wrote here my home and cell number and my home address. You will not regrete
calling me or coming over. I'll make yoo feel like a new woman.

Sinsirly,

Anny

That was it. I opened the car door
and threw up on the ground, waiting until my stomach was completely empty
before attempting to close the car door again. When will people understand that
lesbian
doesn't translate to
easy
?

I threw everything in my purse,
vowing to never return to this store for as long as I should live.

Then, in the corner of my eye, I
saw something move. My head snapped up just in time to see a woman about my age
duck behind one of the store's commercial vans. She moved quickly, but not
before I could get a glimpse of her face.

It was that nurse—that annoying,
too-chipper nurse that had taken care of Morgue when she was in the hospital. I
didn't know her name, but I'd recognize her anywhere:  short, blonde, blue
eyes, curvy. Too bad she didn't seem to have much of a brain.

But the question remained:  Why the
hell was she here? Somehow I doubted she was buying material to make a dress,
or that she was looking for scrapbook supplies. I doubted that she would ever
have a use for anything that had the word
book
in it.

She obviously didn't want me to see
her, so I pretended I saw nothing unusual as I started the ignition and slowly
drove off. Whatever she was up to, it couldn't have been good, no matter how
you look at it. From that I deduced that if she didn't know I was on to her, it
would be easier to figure what she was doing, so I continued to drive in a
nonchalant manner. Once I was outside of the parking lot, I pulled over and
parked on the street, waiting for her to come out, confident she'd never notice
me there and that it would be the same as hiding.

I was right. She pulled out of the
parking lot in a station wagon that was at least ten years old. I waited until
she was almost out of sight before I began slowly following her.

We drove like that for a while, and
eventually she pulled into a grocery parking lot. I parked two rows over from
where she was, near a tree that I could hide behind. My precautions paid off—I
heard the nurse's voice say, "It was a box. I'm guessing a box of Morgan's
stuff from her locker."

I took my phone out and began
recording what I heard.

A familiar male voice said, "What
else did you find out? Where did the lezz go after that?"

"Uh, I don't know."

"You don't know?! What the
hell is wrong with you?"

"I tried following her out.
When I got outside the parking lot, she was gone. She has one of those
expensive Italian cars. They're really fast, Adim."

Adim.

I heard him sigh loudly. "That's
okay. Why don't you spend the night with me? I got some real good stuff from Trent. We'll have so much fucking fun, you'll never want to go home. At least, not without
me. You can invite some friends of yours, too. We'll
all
have fun
together. There's enough Adim to go around."

The shuffling of feet ensued,
followed by the nurse saying, "I told you, Adim, I'm not interested, not
in drugs and
definitely
not in you."

I had to bite down hard on my
smiling lip in order to prevent myself from yelling out, "Aw, BURN, bitch!"

This was too good. I was glad I was
recording it for posterity.

"You don't have to fight your
feelings, babe. I know you want me."

"Yeah, I want you like I want
hep B. I'm only doing this for you because we're both Melted, and we have
missions."

What the fuck? Shit, shit, shit.

"You'll come back, bitch. Keep
watching Morgan and her fucking bodyguards." The sound of a car door
opening and closing, followed by sounds of another car opening and closing.

They both drove off, leaving me
reeling in what I just learned. The fact that Adim was Melted, no surprise
there. Rios and Morgue had figured that out already. But the nurse? Shit. That
was not good. That meant there were more demons around us than we thought.
Plus, Adim and the nurse teaming up? That didn't feel right either.

I jumped in Rios' car and called
Morgue. I didn't know what she said when she answered—I wasn't paying
attention, and it didn't really matter. It couldn't. Not compared to this. "Morgue,
I'll be home in twenty. We have to talk. Can you get some pizza on the table by
then?"

Chapter 16

The sound of heavy breathing filled
the air. His face dripped with sweat.

And blood.

"This isn't legal," I
told Ree, turning my head to see him where he stood, watching our guest
carefully.

"Morgan, why don't you go lie
down?" he suggested, never tearing his eyes from the figure that stood
cowering in the corner in the living room.

"Don't do that to me. Do
not
treat me like a maiden in distress. I'm with you on this, because we're
partners in this life!
Partners,
you understand?"

My strong, loud words were
successful in drawing Ree's attention for a moment. He looked at me and smiled,
an apology (or embarrassment) in his eyes. Then he focused his attention back
on his prisoner, sort of circling him like a jungle cat.

I focused on him too, still not
believing who I saw in front of me. It was going to be another long night.

Ethan, my old apartment manager,
had tried to break in the house through Dess' bedroom window. Ree had
discovered him, and they fought but briefly, which was not a surprise since Ree
was slim but in shape (not to mention
sexy
, which is irrelevant but
always worth pointing out) and Ethan was the size of a twig. He overpowered him
in seconds, slamming him lightly against the wall with his hands behind his
back. Unfortunately, Ethan's face sported a small, fresh cut because he fell
onto an assortment of multi-colored glass vases, which Dess purchased for cheap
at work and displayed on her dresser drawer. He'd surrendered but did not
answer any of Ree's questions.

I wondered where Ree learned to
subdue an opponent so quickly and efficiently, without really hurting Ethan or
even breaking a sweat. It was incredibly hot, actually, but I tried not to
think about that too much. If I started getting lusty again, Ree would probably
sense it somehow, and he didn't need to be distracted.

"And actually, it
is
legal. A man breaks into my house…eh," he shrugged nonchalantly, as if we
were discussing whether or not we should squash a bug. "I can do whatever
I want to him."

"I don't think it works
quite
that way," I said, but I didn't push it anymore. I knew he wouldn't
instigate conflict upon anyone, both because of his angel status and the fact
that Ree didn't believe in acting so juvenile. I realized then that he may have
been trying to scare Ethan into talking.

I was 'good cop' without even
knowing what was going on. Damn, I was good.

"Who sent you to break in?"
the bad cop asked.

Ethan looked at Ree in surprise.

Ree took a step closer to him. "That's
right. I know you couldn't have done this by yourself. You barely make eye contact
with us, and you're afraid of your own shadow."

"Adim sent you, didn't he?"
Dess chimed in, having just come home from visiting—and quitting—work. She was
inhaling a slice of pizza in a manner so casual it was disturbing. You'd have
thought we were at a kid's birthday party instead of a bloody, sweaty
interrogation.

Shocked, I whirled my body around
to face her. "What do you mean, Dess?"

"Morgue, your bastard
ex-boyfriend is keeping tabs on you. That's what I came home to tell you. He
sent that hot-but-stupid nurse, the one who looked after you at the hospital,
to spy on you. On all of us. She was in the parking lot at work, and I followed
her where she had some cheesy status update meeting with Adim. Oh, that reminds
me. Your check." She went into her purse and gave me an envelope.

I took it from her and walked over
to my purse that was sitting on the kitchen counter, stuffing it inside. "Erica?
Adim knows Erica?" I never saw that coming. I was also confused. How did
all this make sense?

"Morgue, they're Melted. Both
of them. For all we know, this dude"—she motioned her head toward Ethan—"is
part of their little jamboree, their little Evildoers Alliance role-playing
game." Dess guffawed at her own joke and opened the pizza box to get
another slice. How she maintained her trim figure with all that she consumed
was beyond me.

Ree and I turned to face Ethan at
the same time. "Melted," Ree said in an amused tone. "Let me
guess. You're Melted too, right?"

Ethan said nothing, looking down on
the floor. He looked up and met my eyes briefly, then looked down again.

"Baby, do you mind going to
our bedroom and sitting there for a moment?" Ree approached me and spoke
quietly. "It has nothing to do with us being equal. Just for a moment.
Please, trust me."

I looked at Ree full in the face,
trying to read the meaning in his eyes. I knew somehow that Ree had a good
reason for asking me to leave, although I had no idea what that reason was. I
nodded and went to our bedroom, but left the door open a little. I sat on our
mattress and listened carefully.

I heard Ethan's voice. "No. I'm
not Melted. I'm a Choop."

"What is that?"

"That's the God Generation's
word for someone like me, an ordinary person whose life is under contract with
a demon, angel, or god."

"Choop. Interesting," Ree
said in a tone that made me think he couldn't care less.

But it made
me
jump to my
feet and walk back out there. Ethan wasn't cowering anymore, but he was still
cornered by Ree, who still took on an alert stance. Dess leaned over the
kitchen counter, lazily pushing a breadstick in her mouth. Everyone turned to
look at me when I walked in, Ree giving me an exasperated
I-can't-intimidate-this-guy-when-you-keep-interrupting
look.

"What do you mean, your life
is under contract, Ethan?" I asked, looking at him straight in the eye.

He flinched a little under my
stare. "It's a deal an ordinary human can make with someone of the God
Generation. I agree to do things for him, and in exchange, when I die, I become
one of them."

"Which means that you're going
to be a demon when you die," Ree reasoned.

"Why would you want to do
that, Ethan?" I asked him, concerned. Why would someone want to make the
switch from being human to being a force of evil?

"I'm bored with my life,"
he said simply, shrugging as if the fate of his soul didn't matter one way or
another.

"Then why didn't you just go
to the movies, dumbfuck?" Dess shouted. I looked over at her as she spoke,
and so help me, she was eyeing the pizza box again.

Ethan didn't answer. He just stood
there on the floor and rubbed his eyes.

I looked at Ree, who motioned that
he wanted to talk to me alone. I nodded. 

He looked at Dess and motioned to
Ethan with his head, silently indicating that she should look after our 'prisoner'
while he and I talked. She nodded and, taking the third slice of pizza which we
all knew she would, walked over to Ethan slowly.

"Sit," she commanded. He
did, sitting on the floor in the corner. Dess pulled up her ottoman with her
left hand, placing it right in front of him and, as she ate the pizza, pushed
on the very center of his chest with her right foot, which still wore that
thin, pointed high heel. He sat back, fear completely immobilizing him.

I looked over my shoulder, watching
this as Ree and I walked into our bedroom and closed the door behind us. "Dess
scares me sometimes."

Ree smiled a bit and gave an
appreciative chuckle. "She scares everyone. That's part of what makes her
so exceptional." He regarded my face and searched my eyes. "I know a
little bit about Choops, but pretended I didn't to see what Ethan had to say
about it. Dess knows about it too, of course. It was one of the few things I
was allowed to discuss with her growing up."

"Okay, I'll accept that
explanation. So, please, explain what you know."

He recited the definition as if he'd
memorized it for homework.

Which, in a sense, I suppose he
had.

"
A Choop is an ordinary
human with no special spiritual background. On Earth they can be legally bound
to a greater being by mutual contract, usually exchanging services for the
promise that said Choop will join the ranks of his master upon death
."

The doorbell rang.

Without further discussion, we left
the room and were just in time to see Dess walking over to the front door. She
leaned over to take a look through the peep hole and shouted, "Are you
kidding me?"

Ree seemed to materialize right
next to her. "Who is that?"

"The other dumbfuck. Adim,"
Dess replied, looking straight at me.

Not knowing what to do with this
information, I sat at the kitchen table, watching Ethan bury his face in his
hands.

Seeing Adim again? I didn't know if
I was ready for this.

"He probably wants his minion
back," Ree said, interrupting my thoughts. He unbolted the door.

"You're opening the door for
him? He's completely nuts," Dess told him.

"He rang the doorbell. He's
indicating that he wants to be civil."

"You obviously haven't met
him."

"All right," Ree
conceded, sighing. "I've watched enough of his actions from Morgan's point
of view to know enough about his behavior. I'll see what he has to say, and we'll
go from there."

He opened the door just enough to
poke his head through. "Can I help you?"

"Let him go," I could
hear Adim growl.