look inside, covered his nose with both hands and took three steps backward.
“Jesus, those things stink,” he said. “One night without them, and already I’d forgotten how bad.”
“They’re worse when they’re dead. Here—” I pulled the menthol cream from my pocket. “Dab some of this under your nose. It’ll help.”
“Naw, that’s okay.” Pinching his nostrils shut, he looked into the open bag. Three dead Harpies stared back at him with open beaks, their snaky hair in limp tangles. “All right. Zip it up.” As I did, he went to a desk and pulled out his checkbook. I gave him my boilerplate affidavit to sign, affirming that I’d performed the service for which he’d hired me, and he signed it with a flourish. It would’ve been nice to have Wendy there as a witness, but this would do.
“What do you do with those things?” Lucado asked, nodding at the body bag.
“Burn them.”
He nodded his approval. “I thought of having one of the bastards stuffed, but I never want to see ’em again. Ever.”
“Taxidermy wouldn’t work, anyway. Nobody can see them except you and me.”
“No kidding? Can they smell them?”
“Sort of. When somebody passes through a place where Harpies have been recently, they sometimes get a whiff of that smell. They might wrinkle their noses or check the bottom of their shoes, but usually they don’t know what it is.”
He made a face. “Smells like somebody puked on a pile of dead rats.” Wow, the guy was a poet. But it was a pretty accurate description, actually.
Lucado opened a closet door and started putting on a wool coat and scarf. “You need a ride?” he asked. “My limo’s waiting downstairs.”
“Uh, yeah. Sure. Thanks.” Usually I don’t accept any favors from clients after the job is done and we’re all square. But I’d never been in a limo. And I’d decided to warn Lucado about Difethwr. Kane wouldn’t like that, but I owed the guy a warning. Neglecting to mention the Hellion’s visit didn’t seem like playing fair. See? I did have principles. They didn’t always line up with Kane’s, that’s all.
The limo was one of those stretch jobs, black with little lights around the windows. Inside it was even roomier than I’d expected. It had a curved bench seat made of supersoft leather. I could’ve stretched out full length on it. Not that I tried. I didn’t turn on the flat-screen TV, play with the electric windows, or rifle through the bar, either, even though I was tempted. There are occasions when a girl’s gotta show some class.
“Where you headed?” Lucado asked.
“Back to Deadtown.”
“Is my Milk Street site close enough?”
“Sure.” Not only did the limo have a TV, it had a video game console, a sound system, and a computer. I wondered if the computer had online access. Also, a mini fridge. Hell, I could live in there—it had all the comforts of home.
But I needed to talk to Lucado about Difethwr. I didn’t think he was in danger, but on the off chance Kane might be right, I didn’t want to leave him unprepared. “Mr. Lucado, about your bodyguard—”
“Frank.”
“I thought you said his name was Wendy—Wendell.”
“No, me. Call me Frank. Mr. Lucado’s my old man. Everybody calls me Frank or Frankie.”
“Frank. Okay. Well, Frank, I want to talk to you about what happened last night, while you were asleep. I know why Wendell quit.”
“Good man, Wendy. He’ll come back. He’s been with me for fifteen years. Doesn’t scare easy, but those damn demons must’ve scared the hell out of him. I don’t blame—” He stopped, then frowned. “I thought you said nobody else could see ’em.”
“That’s right. But those Harpies weren’t the only demons at your place last night.” I told him about Difethwr’s visit. I told him that I’d encountered the Hellion before. The only part I held back was about Dad. Some things are too painful to turn into stories.
As he listened, Lucado’s face moved from attentiveness to a scowl, the scar puckering his eyebrow, his dead eye looking at nothing.
“I don’t think it was coming for you,” I said, finishing up. “As I said, I’ve got a history with this thing. But I thought I should warn you, anyway. What you need to do is find a competent witch and buy a good, strong demon- repelling charm. Tell the witch you need protection against Hellions.”
I’d hired a witch to create a Hellion-repelling charm for Gwen’s house, right after the plague, because Needham is outside Boston’s shield. It was expensive, but the witch renewed it monthly, and it worked like, well, a charm.
“I can recommend a witch, if you’d like,” I told Frank.
“Not good enough.” He turned his head so that it looked like he was staring at me with his blind eye. The only part of his face I could see was violently slashed by his scar. It was unnerving. I don’t think anyone who saw the scar ever asked Frank what had happened to the other guy. You just didn’t want to know.
But if I could look a Gorgon-headed Harpy in the eye, I could do the same with Frank Lucado. I stared at him straight on. “What do you mean, not good enough? There’s a Hellion loose in Boston. A charm can keep it away from you.”
“That’s not how I figure it.” He rolled his eyes, but since I couldn’t see his good eye, the blind one just seemed to ricochet around its socket. I shifted in my seat and leaned over so I could see both eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“Here’s how it looks to me. I hire you to do a job—”
“Which I did.”
“True. I’ll give you that. But you did a hell of a lot more.”
Uh-oh. Suddenly I had a feeling I knew where this was going.
Frank held up his hand and, as he spoke, ticked items off on his fingers. “You killed those Harpies, but from what you’re telling me, you lured something worse into my home. What did you call it?”
“A Hellion,” I muttered, slumping in the leather seat.
“Right. A Hellion. So this Hellion, a thing I never even heard of before, may or may not be out to get me. Now I’ve got to go out and buy an expensive charm just in case. Besides that, you scared off the best bodyguard I ever had, leaving me with no protection. That sound about right to you?”
I wasn’t the one who had scared off Wendy, but it seemed like a moot point. I shrugged. Frank was going to stop payment on his check, I could just feel it. If I had to take him to court to make him pay up, even with the signed affidavit, it’d cost me more in time and court fees than the check was worth.
“So,” Frank continued, “the way I figure it, you owe me some protection.”
I glared at him. “I don’t work for free.”
He smiled. “I like you, Vaughn. You say what’s on your mind.” He looked out the window. We were only a block from Lucado’s construction site on Milk Street. I was just beginning to think that maybe he’d let me off the hook after all when he turned to me again. “What’s your beef with this Hellion?”
His question took me by surprise, but I still wasn’t going to say what it had done to my father. “My family has been at war with demons for centuries.”
“So that’s it, huh? Some ancient blood feud?” He nodded. “I can understand that.”
The limo glided to a halt. The driver started to get out, but Frank punched the intercom button. “Take it once around the block,” he said.
“I’ve got things to do,” I protested.
“Hear me out first.”
I looked at him, then nodded. Frank rapped on the glass divider, and the limo pulled back into traffic as smoothly as a sailboat on a glassy lake.
“So talk,” I said.
Frank looked me up and down, not like he was leering, but like he was sizing me up. The look held both assessment and respect. “We need to come to a new arrangement,” he said. “I’m gonna put you on the payroll.”
I shook my head. “Uh-uh. Sorry, Frank. I’m a free agent. I work for myself.”
