Deadtown

“Everyone calls me Buddy.”

“Thanks, Buddy.” I put the hideous orange hat on, and it promptly tipped forward over my eyes.

“Hey,” said Buddy. “You’re all set for Halloween. Orange and black. You look just like the Great Pumpkin.”

“It’s too big. Don’t you have something smaller?”

“Nah, it’ll do. You’re just gonna talk to Frank, right?”

Yeah, I thought. Looking like the Great Pumpkin. So much for the demon-killer poster girl.

Buddy led the way to an elevator. As we went deeper into the building, the construction sounds intensified. Country music blared from a radio somewhere, and voices occasionally shouted over the din. Scraps of wood and other debris littered the floor. The air smelled like sawdust and oil.

We got out on the tenth floor and walked into a huge open space partitioned here and there by hanging plastic sheets. The noises were louder up here. Buddy pointed toward a group of men about forty feet away. “That’s Frank,” he said, “in the brown suit. I gotta go back downstairs.” He pressed the button for the elevator.

I started toward the man he’d pointed out, but Buddy grabbed my arm. “You ever meet Frank before?”

“No. We’ve spoken on the phone.”

The elevator door opened, and Buddy stepped inside. “Don’t let him scare you,” he said and winked. The door closed.

I laughed. Big, gallant Buddy, worried I’d be afraid of some businessman. Me, who dated a werewolf, shared an apartment with a vampire, and went demon hunting six nights a week. Like I couldn’t handle a human real estate developer. Even one with a reputation for a shady deal or two.

I started across the open space to where the men stood. The one in the brown suit, Lucado, had his back to me. He was medium height, a slight stoop to his shoulders. Four other men huddled around him, all wearing hard hats (not a fluorescent orange one among them, I noticed) and reading blueprints. Lucado gestured and pointed, then shook his head.

The damn hard hat kept sliding down over my eyes. Trying to watch Lucado and adjust the hat at the same time, I tripped over some tool left lying on the floor. I sprawled forward, landing on my stomach with an oof! and getting the wind knocked out of me. The hat flew off and rolled away. I lay there motionless, trying to get some air back into my lungs.

A pair of shiny brown wingtips appeared in my field of vision, followed by a hand. I batted the hand aside—I was not going to begin this interview being helped to my feet by a potential client—and pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. My breath came back in a whoosh, and for a minute I just stayed there, gulping in air, head hanging down, grateful I’d remembered how to breathe. The brown wingtips never moved.

I made it to my feet, squared my shoulders, and looked into the most terrifying face I’d ever seen—on a human, anyway. Victory, meet Frank Lucado.

He had the face of a man who’d stared down violence and ended in a draw. It was the scar. A meaty red streak slashed his face in two, running from his right eyebrow across a milky, sightless eye to the corner of his thin- lipped mouth. Some men would’ve worn an eye patch to hide the bad eye. Not this guy. He was looking at me with a smug amusement that showed he thought he’d already won—whatever our battle would turn out to be—before we even exchanged names. I could tell that he used his scar as a weapon, to keep opponents off balance.

“Mr. Lucado?” I extended my hand. “I’m Victory Vaughn.”

“You? You’re—?” He threw back his head and laughed. He picked up the orange hard hat and put it on my head, patting the top twice like I was a cute little kindergartner. The damn thing promptly tilted over my forehead. “You’re the demon killer? You gotta be kidding me. Honey, my demons would eat you alive.” He started walking back to the group of men.

Jerk. I pushed the hat as far back as I could without having it fall off my head. “I made the time to come out here,” I said. “The least you could do is shake my hand.”

He stopped and looked back at me over his shoulder. “You wanna shake hands?” He shrugged. Then he turned around, strode back, and grasped my right hand. He squeezed it hard; he was trying to make it hurt. But I squeezed harder.

This asshole was notgoing to dismiss me as a clumsy little girl. I poured all my shapeshifter strength into my grip. Lucado’s eyes widened, then bulged. He tried to pull his hand away, but I wouldn’t let go. My fingers tightened around the delicate bones of his hand. Just a little more pressure and I’d crush them. My arm started to tingle, then burn, and I thrilled in my power over this norm. The urge grew to crush, to snap, to pulverize his hand into a mess of smashed flesh and bone. I could do it. I could destroy his hand, and then I could kill him. The thought made me laugh. My forearm felt like it was on fire, blazing with strength. Lucado squeaked out a strangled whimper, and I glanced at the group of men. They still studied the blueprints. Yes, I could do it, I thought. I could kill this jerk. He was mean and weak and pathetic. Who needed him?

A rumble of laughter rolled through my thoughts. I knew that sound—the laugh of the Destroyer. I flashed on a vision of its hideous blue face, triumph in its eyes.

My God, I was letting the mark take over. No, I thought, that’s not me. I willed the vision away, blocked my ears to Difethwr’s laughter, forced down the urge to destroy. My arm flared with pain, but I pushed past the feeling. Fighting the demon essence, I held myself on just this side of crushing the man’s hand, until the impulse to annihilate began to subside. Then I made myself relax each finger, one by one. Lucado snatched his hand away.

“Jesus,” he whispered. “What are you?”

I felt a little queasy from that surge of destructive power, but I cleared my throat and made an effort to speak coherently. “I’m the demon killer.”

Lucado pointed his scar at me and blinked his sightless eye. I’d scared him; now he was trying to scare me back.

“You don’t want to hire me?” I shrugged. “Fine. Go ahead and lie awake in bed each night, having your liver ripped out by disgusting, stinking bird-women.” It was a guess, but Lucado’s demon problem had to be Harpies. Hard to believe, but even a guy this sweet and charming might have an enemy or two out for revenge.

He stared at me, his jaw hanging, the hand I’d nearly crushed cradled against his belly. It was my turn to start walking away.

“No, wait!” Desperation rang in his voice. I kept going, the click of my heels ringing through the construction noise like gunshots.

“Please!” Ah, the magic word. I stopped and turned around, eyebrows raised.

Lucado practically ran over to me. He glanced over his shoulder at the other men. “I’ve told nobody about that. Nobody. How did you know?”

“I know my demons, Mr. Lucado. So, are you ready to talk business?”

He smiled, stretching the scar. The smile touched his good eye, almost making it twinkle. “A businesswoman. Now that I can understand. Demons and shit”—he shuddered, then shook his head—“that stuff’s too spooky for me. All I know is I’ve gotta get rid of those things.”

“I can do that for you.”

He smiled again, shaking his head. “I believe you. I wouldn’t have thought it to look at you, but man . . .” He rubbed his sore hand.

We discussed terms. I was still a little pissed at the guy, so I added twenty percent to my usual fee. He didn’t bat an eyelash, just wrote a check for the first half, the other half payable after the job was done. I wanted to schedule the extermination for the next night—I was still down on sleep—but Lucado wouldn’t wait that long. Now, he insisted, tonight. He wouldn’t budge on that, but I’d expected it. By the time clients get around to calling me, they’re usually pretty desperate, even a tough guy like Lucado. Especially a tough guy like Lucado. Guys like him think they can handle it themselves—until the Harpies have tormented them to the brink of insanity.

After we’d agreed on terms, I needed some information. I pulled out my notebook to take it down. First I got his address and phone number. He lived in a two-story condo at the top of a brand-new building on Commodore Wharf, in the North End. Nice location. He’d developed the building.

“What time do you usually go to bed?”