"Hello, Mal. I never figured you for the Casper Q. Milquetoast type."
Malfeis studies the sleeves of the nondescript gray suit over the top of his wire-rim spectacles. He wrinkles his nose, causing the glasses to rise slightly. "This one is a tad underwhelming, isn't he? I should change into something a bit more dynamic, given the occasion."
His eyes roll back like a toad swallowing a bug, revealing green-tinged whites. His skin ripples like a horse ridding itself of flies, and a tall, dark-haired man in his thirties, dressed in a double-breasted suit fifty-five years out of date, replaces the mousy middle-management office drone.
With its thick eyebrows and strong chin, Malfeis' new face could easily be that of a matinee idol, if not for the cruel set of the mouth and the coldness in the eyes.
"Mengele was one of yours?" I can't help the hint of admiration in my voice.
"Why so surprised, liebchen?" Mal smirked. "You didn't think that the good doctor escaped Nuremberg and evaded Mossad for all those years thanks to sheer luck and strudel, did you?" He gestures to the empty pew opposite him with a surgeon's nimble hands. "Please, be seated, my dear."
I slide in opposite the demon, doing my best not to actually come in contact with him under the tabletop.
"I see you have company," he smiles, nodding at Estes. "Breaking in a new renfield, are you?"
"Tone down the smarm. He's not a renfield," I reply tartly.
"That's what you always say," Malfeis chuckles knowingly. "Far be it from me to argue. Now, what is it you need, girlchick?"
"I'm trying to track down a vampire."
"Aren't you always?"
"Are you interested in doing business or not?"
"My, aren't we touchy...." Malfeis chuckles, shedding the war criminal's skin in favor of that of a woman in a fringed flapper sheath and bobbed hair who wanted to marry a millionaire. "Would you feel more comfortable speaking woman-to-woman?"
"Cut the crap, Mal! Can you help me or not?"
"Depends," she grunts, sticking an ivory cigarette holder between painted lips. "I'll need some specifics."
"African-American. Male. Probably a Noble. He was active in the early 1970s under the name Blackheart, but I doubt it's his permanent tag. Trafficked in hard drugs and was involved in the music industry. Ring any bells?"
Malfeis morphs into an elderly man in Bermuda shorts and a Madras shirt who dreamed of retiring to Florida in style. He frowns for a couple of minutes, tapping an aimless tune on his dentures. "Sounds familiar."
"He may use a sign: a heart with a dagger through it."
Mal's brushy gray eyebrows arch and the rheumy blue eyes twinkle in recognition. "Ah! Him! You were correct in guessing he's a Noble. And while he's black, he's more African than American. Rumor has it he's strega."
I can't keep from groaning. "Are you sure?"
"More than most rumors I spread."
"What else do you have on him?"
"You know the rules. That's all you get for free, girly-girl," the demon grins, popping his dentures like castanets. "What have you got for me in exchange?"
He's got me. I entered his turf and asked him a question. That means I have to provide him with something of commensurate worth - at least as demons judge such things. And in Mal's case, he has a jones for artifacts impregnated with human evil.
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"Estes!"
Estes steps forward a little too quickly for Malfeis' liking. The demon's face spins like a roulette wheel before settling on the visage of a Russian gangster. Estes gasps in astonishment, as Mal hasn't bothered to veil the transformation from mortal eyes.
I hold out my hand, trying to ignore the thunderstruck look on my companion's face. "Give me the witch-breaker."
Estes sounds like a man who has woken from a doze only to find himself strolling down the middle of a busy highway. "The what?"
"The crucifix," I explain.
Estes reaches inside his duster and retrieves the inquisitorial torture device. Mal's eyes light up and I can see the bastard's trying his best not to drool. "My - my! That's a fine piece you're packing, pilgrim."
The demon reaches for the witch-breaker, but I jerk it away. "Now - about that information...."
Malfeis takes a deep breath and drums his fingers against the tabletop. His eyes don't leave the witch-breaker. After a long moment he sighs and nods his head.
"Very well. The one you are looking for is Lord Noir. Although he's Old World, he's been operating out of North America for the last century. He's generated several aliases and he currently owns several
`gentlemen's clubs' across the country. He's headquartered in Atlanta."
"Thanks, Mal."
"As they say: Anything for a friend."
The demon grins, his features redefining themselves into those of young man with shoulder-length blond hair pulled into a ponytail and three rings in his right ear and one in his left nostril. It is a face I know all too well from my dreams. And my nightmares.
I bring the witch-breaker down on the demon's right arm, snapping it like a piece of balsa wood. Malfeis'
stolen face opens its mouth in a wail of inhuman pain. Before he or his flunky behind the bar has a chance to react, I grab the demon by the throat, digging my fingers deep into borrowed flesh.
"Let him go!"
"Now, now, Sonja - mustn't play rough!" Malfeis sputters as he tries, unsuccessfully, to pry my hand away.
"I said let him go, you bastard!" I bellow, shaking him for emphasis.
"He's mine by right!" Malfeis squeaks out through purpling lips. "He came to me for a favor and asked its price. The bargain was made!"
"He didn't know the rules!"
"Ignorance of the Infernal Laws is no excuse - "
I tighten my grip on Malfeis' larynx. I'm in no mood for his glib banter right now. The demon's face sheds its semblance of humanity, dissolving into a cross between the features of a mandrill baboon and a wild boar. A clawed hand swipes at my face, sending my sunglasses flying. I reflexively lift my arm to shield my eyes, letting go of Malfeis' throat. The demon loses no time putting distance between us.
"Have you lost your mind?" he growls, human speech somehow finding its n way out of his tusked snout.
"Coming in here, on my turf, and physically attacking me?"
"I've put up with double-crosses, even triple-crosses from you, Mal. But this will not stand!" I bare my fangs in ritual challenge. "Judd's not like the others in your collection! You and I both know he had no idea what he was getting himself into when he asked for your help. Either give him up or die by my hand.
Which will it be?"
"You are mad!" Malfeis turns and motions to the devil behind the bar. "Willie! Take 'em out!"
Suddenly Estes' back is pressed flat against my own, his guns drawn and pointed at the bartender, who is reaching for something under the register. "Keep your hands where I can see them!"
The bartender glances in Estes' direction with his third eye, trying to decide whether or not he's a threat, and then slowly returns its claws to the top of the bar.
"You're in the wrong, Sonja," Malfeis growls, his features melting into those of a middle-aged African-American man with thick black dreadlocks hanging about his head like furry snakes. "To know a thing's name gives one power over that thing. That is the Law. He gave me his name of his own free will. He is mine, to use as I see fit."
"Fuckin' protean! Goddamned face-dancer!"
"Now - now! There's no need for racial slurs!" Mal replies, sounding genuinely offended.
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) I pull my switchblade. Its silver edge gleams like a wet tooth in the dim light of The Monastery.
"Here, now, girlchick - let's not do something we'll both regret!" Malfeis says, an alarmed look in his eyes.
"Put away the knife...."
"Give him up."
Malfeis growls in angry defiance. A fang the size of a man's little finger pushes past his lips. "Kiss my rosy red baboon butt!"
I lunge at the demon, hissing a ritual challenge as I unsheathe my fangs. The knife blade cuts a silver arc through the air, centimeters from Malfeis' face. The demon leaps aside like a housecat dodging a strike from a snake.
Before I can move closer again, a creature resembling an anthropomorphic octopus detaches itself from the shadows lining the wall and grabs me from behind. Its bulbous, sac-like head hangs low between its shoulders like a partially deflated balloon and its eyes are the size and shape of clenched fists, reflecting the cold, submarine stare of a shark. It has several tentacles, each tipped with a razor-sharp spur, the undersides of which are lined with grasping suction-pads that cling to my flesh like lampreys.
The octopoid wraps a living noose around my throat, yanking me off the ground. I struggle to free myself, but my feet only make contact with empty air. Estes swings one of his guns away from the bartender towards my attacker, but the creature is far smarter than it looks; it dangles me in front of itself as a living shield while lashing out with its other tentacles.
Estes blinks in pain and a long, bright red line appears across his cheek. After a long moment, the line begins to weep blood. If Estes stays within reach, the octopoid's spurs will slice him to confetti. He has no choice but to make for the door and hope he gets a clear shot before the monster snaps my head off like a Barbie doll's.
Estes edges his way up the bar towards the doorway of The Monastery. Malfeis and his attendant demons follow him, the octopoid holding me aloft like a grotesque lantern. I kick at the air, clawing desperately at the tentacle wrapped about my neck like a thuggee's garrote. My face is dark with congested blood, my eyes starting from their sockets. Something like blood is seeping from my nostrils and ears, and foam flecks the corners of my mouth. It's not a pretty picture, and believe me, it feels a hell of a lot worse than it looks.
"Let her go!"
The demons exchange grins as they close in for the kill, amused by Estes' show of bravado.
"Again with the demands!" snorts Malfeis, who is wearing the exterior of a flabby white male dressed in a loud plaid polyester leisure suit with white buck loafers. "Give me that! Do this! Don't do that!" His smile grows larger, sharper, and meaner as his mouth stretches from ear to ear. "Who do you people think you are?"
Estes makes a desperate lunge towards the door, but his way is blocked by a hulking, foul-smelling figure standing just inside the wide flaps of scuffed, translucent plastic that keeps the bar's air conditioning from pouring out into the street. Estes instinctively recoils as the thing steps towards him, uncertain of which threat he should open fire on first.
The shark grin on Malfeis' borrowed face abruptly disappears and the bartender's third eye starts from its socket. The octopoid makes a sound like a backed up toilet disgorging a week's worth of sewage, then drops me on the floor.
Mat holds his hands up, grinning nervously. "Hey, man - we're cool! We don't want any trouble here, okay?"
Estes lowers his gun and stares at the bedraggled street person standing in The Monastery's doorway, baffled by the demons' reaction to a bum with newspapers stuffed in his shoes. Of course, being human, he cannot see things for what they truly are.
The seraph stares for a long moment at my bruised throat and the blood leaking from my nose and ears, then looks at the three demons. A spark ignites in the back of its eyes, filling them with a golden glow, as if someone carrying a torch was climbing up the stairs from a dark cellar. With great deliberation, it takes a single step towards the demons.
The seraph opens its mouth and a trilling noise, like that of a thousand crystal wind chimes, issues forth.
It's both beautiful and ominous, like the chanting of Kyoto monks. The octopoid makes a sound like broken plumbing and, tentacles waving in panic, disappears in a cloud of shadow.
"No! Fido - stop!" I croak, lurching to my feet. Bloody spittle flies from my lips as I force the words from
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) my bruised larynx.
The seraph halts and turns to regard me. I feel its thoughts pass through my mind, like minnows darting through swiftly moving water.
"Please, Sonja - make it go away!" Malfeis begs, on the verge of tears.
"Why should I?" My voice sounds like someone had used a floor stripper on my throat. "I ought to let it sing you and your toadies straight back to Hell."
"No!" Malfeis wails in panic, wringing his talons. "Not that! I'll do anything you want - just make it leave!"
"Give it up, then."
"Deal." The demon looks around, a sour look on his face. "I'll need something to put it in."
"Here - I think I have something that'll do the trick." I reach inside my jacket and pull out the little blue bottle VéVé gave me before we left Mojo House.
"It'll do," Malfeis says with a resigned growl. He unplugs the neck of the perfume bottle, raises it to his lips, and spits out the name. He then quickly stoppers the bottle and hands it to me. "There you go," he sneers. "Are you happy now?"
"I'm fuckin' ecstatic." I hold the bottle between thumb and forefinger so I can squint at the tiny glimmer of light within.
"We square now?"
"Yeah," I answer grudgingly, returning the bottle to my breast pocket. "I guess so."
"Then get that fucking thing out of my bar!" Malfeis shrieks, stabbing a clawed finger at the seraph.
"C'mon, Fido - let's clear out of this shit hole." Fido glances at me, then back at Malfeis. "Yeah, I know," I sigh. "But a deal's a deal."
The seraph obediently steps back and falls in behind us. The golden glow in its eyes gutters out as it returns to being a rank-and-file vagrant who wanders the streets in search of spare change and Thunderbird. I reach into my jeans pocket and hand the seraph a crumpled dollar bill. It quickly stuffs the money into its overcoat; nodding its head to a rhythm only it can hear, then simply turns and walks away.