Chapter 26

“We’re full,” my bestie said through bulging cheeks. Her fingertips twitched.

“Put your magic away,” the demon said. “You’ll just tire yourself.” He’d combed his unruly salt-and-pepper hair and exchanged his wool fisherman’s sweater for a loose unbleached linen shirt that reminded me less of pirate’s clothing and more of the sails of a ghost ship.

Was this effort for me, for Sachie, or did he just like to dress up whenever he went to Brimstone Breakfast Club?

Whatever the reason, if he wanted us dead, it would have happened already.

“What do you want?” I said.

“I told you, pancakes. Or waffles. I actually prefer those.”

There was a rap at our door.

The shedim raised an eyebrow. “I hope you didn’t pay extra to get the rabbi out here to reset your ward on a weekend.”

“You’re spying on me, stalker?”

“I keep tabs and the last time I checked there was no ward. Ergo…”

I unclenched my fists. “If you do anything to hurt the rabbi?—”

“You’ll what?” He strode over to the sofa, picked up the bag with the peanut butter cups, and sniffed it.

The rabbi knocked again.

“Don’t keep him waiting.” The demon popped a candy in his mouth, a surprised look on his face. He helped himself to a second one.

Sach shot me a “get him the fuck out of here” look which I replied to with a “How? Have at it.” one.

At the third knock, I took a deep breath, plastered a smile on my face, and opened the door. “Hello. Thank you for venturing out this fine winter’s eve.”

Points to the security company for employing female rabbis, but points deducted to Team Aviva for the perplexed look she shot me at my old-timey turn of phrase.

She set a metal case on the ground. “You did say it was an emergency.”

“And time and a half for you.” Delacroix smirked, but at my glare, moseyed over to the rabbi. “Will you be cleaning the post first?”

“That’s right.” She clicked the case open and extracted a small spray bottle of fluid and a soft cloth from her bag. “Seen this before, have you?”

“Once or twice.” He popped a hip against the wall. “I’m fascinated by the ways we keep evil at bay. Though it doesn’t protect from yetzer hara, the innate inclination to evil.”

The rabbi smiled and sprayed fluid on the door post. “Lucky for us, we counter that with yetzer hatov.”

Sachie insistently beckoned me over. “What if him being here while the ward is replaced means he’s exempt from its effects?” she whispered.

“Fuck!”

The rabbi and the demon broke off their Talmudic musings to shoot me identical chastising looks.

“Sorry. Uh, question, Rabbi.” That’s where I stalled out, unable to find a subtle way to phrase it.

“What happens if you set a ward in the presence of a shedim?” Sachie said.

“Terrifying prospect.” Delacroix nodded sagely, which failed to mask the unholy glee in his eyes. “Would the ward affect them? Or even set at all, given the presence of such malice? For as it says in Deuteronomy?—”

“Forget Deuteronomy,” I snapped. “What’s your opinion, Rabbi?”

She squatted down to rummage in her case. “I assure you the ward would set. As for any shedim present, it’s hard to say. They might be exempt. Then again.” She pulled a cloth-wrapped item out of her bag. “The force of the ward’s magic might kill them.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” I said cheerfully.

“Maybe a puny demon,” Delacroix muttered.

“Excuse us a moment,” I said.

The rabbi nodded, unwrapping the new mezuzah.

I grabbed Delacroix’s arm and tugged him into the kitchen. “What is it going to take to get you out of here until this ward is reset?”

He flicked a finger painfully against my forehead. “Do you have a head injury? I’ve told you twice now. Come for breakfast.”

I crossed my arms. “You’ll leave and let us ward ourselves up, all in exchange for coming with you to the restaurant?”

“It’s not like I don’t know where to find you,” he said. “Besides, if you don’t get a new ward, Cardoso will be all put out, and he’s an annoying bastard when he gets grumpy.”

“Why this sudden invitation?”

“It’s not sudden. I asked you before and you said rain check. It’s a thank-you meal. If it wasn’t for you, I would have killed my daughter when we met.” He shrugged. “I find I like having a kid.”

“Do you now?” I snarled. Where were you the past thirty years?

“Shedim are capable of feelings.” He sniffed primly. “And it’s fun to run the odds of our progeny causing chaos. Give them incentives to play a certain hand versus another.”

“So much for feelings. This is pure mercenary evil.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive, girlie.”

“Oh my God,” I muttered.

“The rabbi is ready to set the ward,” Sachie anxiously called from the living room.

“We’ll meet you in the alley behind the condo in half an hour,” I said.

“You better.” A narrow portal back to the Hell spun open.

“Leave through the door,” I hissed. “Like a normal person.”

Luckily, he did.

Creating a new ward was a simple matter involving industrial glue and four sets of prayers. The entire thing took less than fifteen minutes, then the rabbi was gone, leaving me to trust we were once more protected.

Sachie grumbled about my no-weapons decree as she put on her shoes, though her curiosity about visiting the demon realm won out over her rational desire to be armed to the teeth.

I remained human in this part of the demon realm, versus flaunting my Cherry Bomb side in Babel, so I wasn’t concerned about being outed.

The red and purple light portal that Delacroix opened to Flaming Flapjacks when we stepped into the alley deposited us in the parking lot outside the restaurant.

Sachie was uncharacteristically subdued as she got her first glimpse of the 1950s-style pancake house with its large curved windows, chrome accents, and pastel green awning. Nestled against jagged obsidian cliffs, it was framed under a sky that burned with the fiery hues of a dying sun, casting an eerie crimson glow over the landscape. Ashen clouds roiled and churned, casting long ominous shadows that stretched against the cracked earth.

I threw an arm over my face to protect myself from the hot, arid wind buffeting me, and led Sach toward the building.

There was a tinge of mania to the pancake in a chef’s hat doing the cancan on the neon sign while the “S” in Flaming Flapjacks had yet to be repaired, still flickering and hissing.

I held the restaurant door open for Sachie, wondering what it would be like to come here looking as Cherry? Would the food taste better? Would I be accepted or still treated as the abomination that most halfies were to full shedim? Not that I was seeking to build community here, but still.

The fly hostess (both an accurate physical description and subjective opinion about her look) was nowhere to be seen.

Guessing that Delacroix was out on the veranda, I grabbed a couple of plastic laminate menus from the hostess podium.

Elvis belted out a bluesy number about one night of sin on the jukebox as I led Sach through the mostly empty restaurant.

A rhino shedim with bright blue eyeshadow behind horn-rimmed glasses drank from a white coffee mug smeared with her red lipstick, while her companion, a buff gym rat with two extra arms, poked at what I hoped was cottage cheese.

We passed the sign reading, “Bring Your Appetite; Leave Your Grudges!” which hung over the table where a shedim who was nothing more than a mini tornado with glowing green eyes, hoovered up some kind of mash on its plate.

Sachie’s eyes were wide and she had this delighted crooked smile on her face—with both dimples on display. I hadn’t seen that exact expression since our grade-three field trip to the fire station when we were allowed to go through the fire engine and flick on the siren.

Delacroix was seated out on the screened veranda, fans spinning lazily overhead. Once more the humidity was off the charts, though none of his old man buddies had joined him today.

I blotted sweat off my forehead and took a seat across from him.

Sachie sat down next to me.

He nodded at her. “Well? Better than Vegas?”

“I’ll tell you after I try the food.”

Our server was squat and toad-like but the coffee they brought was fresh and our food (waffles for Delacroix, blueberry pancakes for Sach and me) was outstanding. Even Sach pronounced them the best pancakes she’d ever had.

Delacroix gave a pleased smile, took a sip of piping-hot coffee, and leaned back in his chair, cradling his mug. “Admit it, the Copper Hell impressed you.”

She shrugged, though a smile tugged at her lips.

“I built a damn fine place,” Delacroix said. “It impresses everyone. Even my daughter, and it turns out girlie’s a tough nut to impress.”

Girlie? I choked on my mouthful of pancake.

“You have a daughter? I hope she took after her mother,” Sachie said dryly.

I pounded back half a glass of water.

“Mostly,” Delacroix said grumpily. But then he brightened. “She got good stuff from me though. Scales, those green eyes, crimson hair, horns.”

Did he mean Maud or me?

I swallowed hard. It had to be me. Delacroix was a demon. He’d found out I was his half shedim daughter and was drawing out this bombshell of a reveal, right here, right now, in front of my best friend. Payback for not telling him myself.

I gripped my glass, terrified to look at Sachie and see the disgust and anger in her eyes when Delacroix finally spoke my name. I braced myself for her to jump to her feet and scream my betrayal to the heavens.

Sach furrowed her brow, looking at me oddly.

Delacroix drank some more coffee, his expression thoughtful. “I’m thinking of running some poker tournaments at the Hell. Putting her up against high rollers I know.”

The vise around my chest loosened. Not me. My secret was safe.

“You mean Maud?” Sach could be deadpan but I’d never heard her so devoid of emotion. It was as if shock had broken the lever that dispelled feelings.

The demon nodded at me. “This one didn’t tell you? Kid tried to kill me and this girlie here stepped in, blustering about arrests and justice.”

“No,” Sachie said faintly. “This one didn’t tell me.” She stood up, the scrape of her chair along the floorboards a whisper instead of a furious howl. “I’d like to go home now.”

Delacroix opened a portal without a word of protest.

“I—Sach—” I waved my hands in entreaty, but she stepped away from me and vanished. I whirled on the shedim. “Why fuck me over like that?”

Delacroix fished a cigarette out of his back pocket and popped it in his mouth. “Maud was walking around free. You pulled one over on the Maccabees and I was curious whether your friends were in on it.”

“Bullshit,” I spat. “That’s not why you did this.”

“Sure it is. Information is power. But, I’ll concede that’s not the only reason.” He unearthed a book of matches, struck one against the cover, then lit up and took a deep drag. “I let you brush off my previous invitation to breakfast because you said rain check. You never got back to me to reschedule and I hate it when people don’t keep their promises. I am, after all, a man of my word.”

“I was busy. And you’ve got a lot of nerve lecturing me about promises. You’re a shedim. Yours don’t have any worth.”

“On the contrary.” Delacroix blew a smoke ring into my face, his eyes glittering. “I always keep mine.”

My urge to painfully destroy him was so overpowering that it made my teeth throb.

“Someone tried to blackmail Maud,” I said. “They wanted proof of her changing on camera.”

He punched the table. “Who?”

“I killed them.”

“You want a gold star?”

“No. Answers. Do you know of a dark magic ritual involving infernal blood and a power word?”

“No.” Delacroix narrowed his eyes. “For what purpose?”

“Vampire invincibility.”

His expression hardened. Water swelled up from the floorboards.

I pulled my feet up onto my chair.

“Maud’s blackmailer,” Delacroix said. “He was a vampire?”

I nodded. “He did this to impress Natán Cardoso.”

The water vanished and the shedim’s expression eased. “Just because the blackmailer believed it doesn’t make it so. I’ve heard a lot of stories people tell themselves to keep their hope alive.”

Was that all it was? A story with nothing behind it?

“And I’ve dealt with Cardoso Sr.,” Delacroix said. “Messing with dark magic isn’t his style. A thorough and meticulous obliteration of anyone who gets in his way, sure. But not that. Someone is telling tales.” He tapped ash onto the table. “What else you got tying Cardoso to this power play?”

I filled him in about Roman Whittaker’s murder at the London HQ jail cell. “I ruled out Maccabee involvement.”

“Who told you that operative was murdered?”

“Ezra.”

“Any other proof?”

I blinked. “Why would he lie about it?”

The demon laughed. “He lies like he breathes. Who’s to say he didn’t want you looking into Maccabees for his own purposes?” He exhaled another stream of cigarette smoke. “Or that he didn’t kill that vamp himself?”

Ezra had been in London when it happened. But why…? I shook my head. “This wasn’t Ezra. Stop fucking with me.”

Delacroix had the audacity to grin. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.” He waved his hand at the still-open portal. “You’ve taken up enough of my time.”

“One more—” I was blasted back through the portal into my living room. Brimstone Breakfast Club was over, but Sachie would be waiting. My true reckoning was about to begin.