“Not even. Is there anything about the Twelve in there?”
He slowed his stride, just barely, but enough for me to know I’d hit pay dirt. “There is, actually. Several stanzas center around the Twelve and their role in the shit storm to come.”
My heart kind of sank. I usually did my best to avoid conflicts with beings that escaped from hell for the sole purpose of ripping out my jugular and presenting my lifeless body to their master. Especially when said master defined the phrase evil incarnate.
I held up a brave hand. “Don’t sugarcoat it for me, Swopes.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“God forbid I get a decent night’s sleep.”
“We couldn’t have that.”
“Do we win?” I asked. We got to the elevator, which looked about as safe as that guy on the street earlier handing out free samples of blue candy in little Baggies.
Garrett pressed the UP button. “What do you mean?”
“The shit storm. The Twelve.” I waved a hand to demonstrate the vastness of it all. “Do we defeat them?”
The doors slid open. We stepped inside; then he pushed the button for the fifth floor while offering me a look of mild confusion. “Why would we fight them?”
“Because they want my head on a platter.”
Keeping my hand in his – though I wasn’t completely sure why, since no one was in the elevator with us – he asked, “Why would they want your head on a platter?”
“Because,” I repeated, growing impatient, “they’re the Twelve. It’s apparently what they do.”
“Charles, you need to stop watching late-night movies. The Twelve are good. They’re sent to protect you, the daughter.”
“What? They’re hounds from hell. How can they —?”
“Hounds from hell?” When I nodded, he asked, “Literally?”
I nodded again.
“Then we’re talking about a different Twelve. The Twelve the prophecies mention say they are all spiritual beings.”
“That can’t be right,” I said as we stepped off the elevator. The dreary halls were paved with stained carpet that had the acrid scent of urine and chemicals. I covered my nose and mouth, trying to guard against the telltale aroma of illegal drug production. I wondered if Daniel was a cook or just a distributor. But the worst aspect of the entire scenario was the cries of a baby down the hall. Why was there always a crying baby down the hall?
We stepped over old fast-food bags, empty bottles of both soda and beer, and a pair of ripped jeans before we found Daniel’s door. Garrett took up position around the corner that led to the stairwell, his sidearm drawn.
When he gestured that he was ready, I stuffed a piece of gum in my mouth, raised my hand, and almost knocked.
Garrett questioned me silently with an urgent shrug.
I leaned toward him and whispered, “Why were we holding hands downstairs, playing star-crossed lovers, if I have to go in here alone?”
The grin that spread across his face was so full of mischief, I almost laughed.
“You are a dirty, rotten scoundrel,” I said, teasing him.
He winked as I straightened my shoulders, then really knocked.
“What?” a male voice yelled out, clearly annoyed at having been disrupted.
But I’d knocked too soon. I forgot that the only gum I had was the super-duper sour kind. The kind that promised a pucker with every piece.
I blinked back tears, tried to realign my eyelids to the same width, and said, “Crystal sent me,” in my best New York accent. No idea why.
He wrenched open the door before I could get my lids completely realigned. I could feel one squinting against the powerful atomic mixture squeezing my cheeks together like an overzealous aunt. The kind with too much lipstick and sharp nails. He paused a moment to take me in, during which time I forced my lids to chill, smacked the gum as annoyingly as I could manage, and winked. He nodded a greeting with his big head. It sat atop his big shoulders only to be outdone by his even bigger belly and what had to be size 14 shoes.
After he surveyed every inch of me in much the same way I’d surveyed him, he glanced up and down the hall. When he was satisfied no one had taken up position around the nearest corner – Garrett was good – he gestured me inside. “Muffy’s in here.”
“Muffy?” I asked, following him inside. I was going to have to pretend to want to have sex with a girl? A girl named Muffy? What the hell kind of name was Muffy? If I were a prostitute, I’d go for something cool and exotic like Stardust. Or Venus. Or Julia Roberts.
From my periphery I spotted Javier round the corner, at the opposite end of the hall, narrowly escaping the observant gaze of Daniel the bad guy. Garrett eased forward as our target closed the door, sealing my fate like a ziplock bag sealed in freshness. I could only pray they’d hurry. If I had to kiss a prostitute dumb enough to call herself Muffy, I was going to demand compensation. She couldn’t possibly practice good dental hygiene.
“The shampoo’s under the sink,” Daniel said. “Try not to clog it up.”
Okay, this was getting way kinkier than I’d expected. I’d need therapy when it was all said and done. No, wait, I already needed therapy. Never mind.
As my overactive imagination conjured all kinds of scenarios of why Muffy and I would need shampoo, an adorable Yorkie yapped at me from behind a recliner. “And do her nails,” Daniel said as he plopped into a creaky recliner. “Last time the girl didn’t do her nails.”
Wait? Was he serious? I thought I was supposed to be a prostitute or something.
I scanned the area for other occupants, but he appeared to be alone. “Okay, I gotta text Crystal and let her know I’m here, ya know?”
“Fine, whatever.” He picked up the remote and turned off the mute. A game of some kind was on, the sound of a cheering crowd blared through the room. Good thing. The noise would muffle any ruckus the guys made.
I scooped up Muffy to keep her out of harm’s way, then texted Garrett the situation: One male. Alone. And a Yorkie. Count to thirty. I wanted to get Muffy into another room before they broke down the door.
“I ain’t seen you before,” Daniel called out to me. “You work with Crystal long?”
“Um, yeah, you know.”
He muted the TV. Damn it. What’d I say?
“How long?” he asked. He stood again and came into the kitchen just as I sent the text.
I stuffed my phone into my pocket. “Only a couple of months. She needed someone while Valerie was out.”
“Who the fuck’s Valerie?” he asked, easing into the kitchen. Keep it simple. Keep it simple. But before I could answer, he asked, “Is she that skinny chick that ran off with Manuel?”
I laughed and shrugged. “I don’t know. I never met her.”
“That chick was psycho, man. You should have seen what she did to Muffy’s ears. She just needs a trim, okay? I don’t want no sissy-ass do with bows and shit. Fuckin’ Valerie. I told her that, and she still gave her pink highlights.”
You could give a dog highlights? “Okay. No bows. No highlights. Got it.”
“Okay. Just so we’re —”
The front door crashed open, and I took a dive with Muffy. I couldn’t keep the term muff diver from popping into my head as I did so. Daniel wasn’t stupid. He didn’t hesitate a second before he went for the large kitchen window. He slid the dirty pane up and scrambled headfirst through the thing, his large body deceivingly quick.
“Swopes!” I called out, tossing Muffy onto her pallet and hurrying through the window after him.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that Daniel was a planner. A suspicious sort. He knew if anyone came at him from anything other than the front door, they’d have to take the fire escape up to his apartment, so he’d loosened the rails. No one could come up without it collapsing, and only he knew where to step to get down safely. The poor man’s alarm system.
I never got the memo. Thus, the moment I basically fell through the wind
ow, following him onto the rigged fire escape, the railing gave beneath our weight and toppled over, secured to the exterior wall only by the bottom bolts. Daniel clung to a set of bars he’d installed, probably for that very purpose, but without a stable foothold, he couldn’t hang on for long. The railing swayed, metal clanging against metal as the third guy from our party stood in the alley at the bottom, his eyes large as he watched. Daniel grunted as his hands slipped, and he fell onto the rocking fire escape, his weight causing another bolt to go.
In an instant, we dropped a perilous foot. I had a death grip on the bars, my feet dangling as I tried to get a foothold. I looked down again before I remembered the old adage: Never look down. Five stories was freaking high!
“Charley!”
Garrett was hanging out the window above me.
“What?” I asked. “Get me off here before I plummet to my death.”
But he was gone. Seriously?
“Having fun?” Reyes asked me. My adrenaline had spiked, and he was there. It was kind of nice, but he was incorporeal. He couldn’t really help me. Or, well, I didn’t think he could. He was sitting on the railing, his full robe waving like the sails of a flagship in the wind. He pushed back the hood, then let the robe settle around him and disappear.
“Not really.” I heard sirens in the distance.
“Son of a bitch,” Daniel said, trying not to make the metal contraption sway. He was more on the top part of the escape and I was more on the bottom part, hanging on by my fingertips. Memories of the elementary school playground flashed before my eyes. I sucked at monkey bars. I was always the girl who got blisters and fell into the dirt halfway across.
“Any ideas?” I asked him.
“You could climb up,” he said matter-of-fact.
I was literally hanging by my fingertips. Climbing up from this position would require way more upper body strength than I currently possessed. “You’re not putting any weight on this metal thing, are you?”
“I don’t think so. I can go if you want.”
“No!” I shouted.
“Bitch, what?” Daniel said. “I didn’t do a damn thing to you.”
I groaned. I had to be stuck on a collapsing fire escape with a guy who could give a sumo wrestler a run for his money.
“I could help you,” Reyes said, and I felt my fingers slipping, the wetness of my palms making the bars slick. “Do you want my help?”
Clearly we were playing games. I gave him my best death stare.
He chuckled and said, “It’s a simple yes/no question, Dutch.”
Before I could say anything else, a sheet floated down from overhead.
“Grab hold!” Garrett yelled, but I couldn’t let go. If I did, I would fall.
My fingers slipped a centimeter more, and I heard Reyes at my ear, his voice as deep and as beautiful as he was. “Let go.”
“I can’t,” I replied in a whispered strain.
“Of course you can.”
But before I could argue any further, my hands slipped again and the bar disappeared from my grasp entirely.
10
I used to be indecisive.
Now I’m not so sure.
— T-SHIRT
My reaction was instantaneous. Adrenaline spiked hard and fast. Sound ceased. Gravity let go. And time slowed to a stop. The blood pumping in my ears was replaced by a thick, odd feeling of pressure all around me like a vacuum.
I looked up. The sheet floated over my head as though it were rising instead of falling. I could just see Garrett as he stood at the window, holding the sheet, his expression severe. He’d cut his hand. Blood that had been dripping off his palms was headed back to where it came from as time not only slowed but reversed itself.
Amazement consumed me. I literally felt the shift of gravity. The pull of the earth beneath my feet became a soft, subtle push in the opposite direction.
I was flying!
Or, well, floating. But before I could get too happy and lose the precarious hold I had on the moment, I felt Reyes’s strength surround me like a force field, his hand wrap around my wrist as I took hold of the sheet.
“Ready?” he asked, but the moment he said it, time bounced back in place with a vengeance. It crashed into me in one giant wave. Sound rocketed through me and gravity staked its claim, jerking back toward the earth and almost wrenching the sheet out of my hand.
I slammed against the building and struggled to hold on as Garrett pulled.
“Hold on!” he said from between gritted teeth.
He didn’t need to tell me twice.
I tucked my errant hair behind my ears as Garrett walked up. “What the fuck was that?” he asked, raising my ire. “We had a guy waiting for him below. You didn’t have to go out the window.”
“I didn’t know you had a guy down there. Nor did I know Daniel over there was so paranoid that he disabled the fire escape. You might have shared your plan with me.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m fine. Except my fingernails hurt. How’s your hand?”
“It’ll heal. Especially when it’s holding a ten-thousand-dollar check. So, I guess it’s your turn: What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Oh, right, the Twelve. My sources say the Twelve are a group of imprisoned demons who escaped hell and are coming here to rip me apart.”
He stilled.
“No, wait, to rip me to shreds. I think that’s what he said.”
He leaned against the tailgate with me, testing the bandages on his hand. “Dr. von Holstein told me there were several mentions of the Twelve. I’ll ask him to look closer at that.”
“Sounds good. In the meantime, be really really really really careful.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Yeah, some men broke into my apartment and said I had to find this lady within forty-eight hours or my friend was dead.” I took out a photocopy Cookie made me of the picture. “The problem is, I have no idea which friend it is.”
“I didn’t think you had any friends.”
“I have you,” I said, petting his manly biceps. “You don’t happen to know her, do you?”
He shook his head. “Sorry. But I can look into it.”
“Thanks. And just so you know, I have no intention of finding this woman. It could get sticky.”
“Sticky works.” He put the folded picture in his back pocket. “So what happens when the Twelve get here?”
“Oh, that. Yeah, we all die a horrible, painful death. Or I could use the dagger you found. I figure I’ll just talk them all into throwing themselves on it, one at a time.”
“Your plans suck.”
“People keep telling me that.”
“I had a thought recently,” he said.
“Just one? Don’t strain your brain.”
“I think we should work together.”
Another partner. First Aunt Lil, now Swopes? Was there something going on I didn’t know about?
“You have a job,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but I want to broaden my horizons.”
Well, I already had Aunt Lil on board. We could be a threesome, I guessed. We could be the Terrific Trio. It could work.
“I’ll think about it. Do you have any references?” I asked.
“None that would really impress you.”
“Hmm, we can work around that.”
“We should grab a bite. Talk about it.”
A woman in a yellow halter and cutoffs walked around the corner, took one look at the plethora of cop cars and the ambulance, and turned back the way she’d come. I wondered if she was the girl sent by Crystal. “What about Muffy?” I asked Garrett.
“Who’s Muffy?”
“Daniel’s Yorkie.”
“Well, okay, but only one. I’m not that hungry.”
“She needs a home.”
“Don’t look at me,” he said, horrified I’d looked at him.
“Swopes, I can’t take her. I’m never home.”
“And I am?” When I glared, he said, “Fine, I think I know someone who will take her. But you’ll owe me. Again.”
I snorted. “I don’t owe you. Just because I got you shot a few times and sent to hell doesn’t mean I owe you.” He didn’t answer. We were at a stalemate. An impasse. A standoff. I caved first. It never took long. “Fine. What do you want?”
He looked at the activity around us as he spoke. “Do you remember that woman who kept coming over just to have sex? Marika?”
“Yeah, sure. You said she had a son. He might be yours.”
“Yeah, well, I want to know for sure.”
That should be easy enough. “You want me to ask her?”
“No. She put her husband down as the father. She’d never tell you the truth.”
“Ah, but that’s my specialty. I can tell when people are lying, remember?”
“Doesn’t mean she’ll give you the name of the father. And I don’t want her to know I’m looking into it. If someone starts asking around, she’ll get suspicious.”
“Okay, what, then?”
“I’ll let you know later,” he said as Javier walked up to us. “Until then, do you know any good Yorkie recipes?”
“That’s not even funny.”
“It’s a little funny. We should still grab a bite. Talk about our future together.”
“Don’t get any ideas about us, Swopes. I’m nigh affianced. And I only put out for coffee.”
“I read your status updates,” he said. “I know the score.”
I frowned. “I could cook you for dinner, instead. Roast you over an open pit of flames.”
One side of his mouth slid north. “Been there. Done that.”
I winced at the reminder.
After answering questions from the APD and taking a tongue-lashing from the owner of the apartment building, who was very particular about his fire escapes, I said my good-byes to Mr. Garrett Swopes and headed downtown, Mr. Andrulis and I driving until we came to an ever-familiar mental asylum. It wasn’t familiar because I’d spent time there or anything. This mental asylum had been abandoned in the ’50s and housed one of my favorite people on planet Earth, the Rocket Man.
The last time I saw him, I’d behaved very badly. I hadn’t been back since, mostly because I’d threatened to rip his little sister, who was five, to shreds if he didn’t answer my questions. Shame consumed me at the memory. I had driven here more than a few times in the last couple of weeks, and each time I couldn’t bring myself to go in.