Demon Song

an ass as I thought he was, he was a hell of an attorney. Even if he couldn’t have helped her, he would have referred her to one of his own. Why a bodyguard?

“He said you could keep me safe. I just want to be safe.” Really? Ron said that? Wow. I hoped my dropped jaw wasn’t too obvious.

“Who’s trying to hurt you?”

Now the eyes went to the floor. Uh-oh. Trouble. “No one in particular.”

That was such bullshit. No way would someone with that much fear in her face and body not know who was trying to hurt her. “Bullshit. Try again.” My voice came out a little harsher than I’d planned. After all, she was just a kid.

But it snapped her out of it. The eyes went from frightened to angry. “Excuse me? You don’t get to talk to me that way. I’m the one hiring you.”

Reality check for the young miss. I held up one finger to stop the flashing eyes. She dropped her feet to the floor and held her body straight for the first time since she’d walked into the room. I could finally get a good look at her. She had long dark, shining hair and a little baby fat around her waist. But she was healthy and had good muscle tone, so she probably wasn’t a runaway. “Let’s make one thing perfectly clear, Ms. Bustamante. I put my life on the line for complete strangers. I walk into unknown dangers.” I raised up my upper lip to reveal the fangs and watched her eyes go wide again, for a different reason. “I got these on a job. I plan for as much as I can, but I rely on my clients to be absolutely honest with me. If there are known dangers I need to prepare for, I need that knowledge.”

“You’re obviously in trouble. I can see it in your face. You’re twelve and you need a professional bodyguard? What the hell did you do to someone or what did they do to you to require that?” Her fingers started moving in her lap, twining over each other. I caught a glimpse of pale pink polish on nails bitten nearly to the quick. Then one hand moved up to twist a lock of hair. She was holding my gaze but just barely. The tension in that small body … it was ready to explode and I didn’t know which way the blast was going to go. I finally took pity and softened my voice. “Maria … one of the reasons people hire a bodyguard is to finally … finally be able to tell someone the truth. Someone who’ll understand, will take it seriously, and will never, in a million years, tell a soul.” I finished in a whisper that seemed loud in the silent room.

That was the straw. The coil unwound and she fell backward into the chair. The tough shell shattered into a million pieces and tears came to her eyes. “He’s going to kill me, Miss Graves. He already killed my brother, Manuel, and then he’ll kill me and there will be nobody to help Mama or Papa. Oh, God, please. I don’t wanna die.” The collapse was complete and she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

“Who?”

“Jorge Encarcion.”

Oh, dear God. Fuck a duck. Jorge “the Viper” Encarcion was the baddest of the bad drug dealers in this part of the state. He dealt mostly in flame and tame: magical drugs—enhanced versions of the typical coke or ecstasy that gave the user both a mental and physical high. With the temporary illusion charm, a user could do anything … be anything on flame. A model for a day? No problem. An actor at the top of his career was just a quick pop away. But the effects were devastating for people born without magic to draw on. The drug fed on the body itself, causing scars, muscle twitches, and paralysis. Tame was just the opposite. It was the Valium of the new millennium. A bad day at the office or major life tragedy was all better after a quick needle to the veins. But it was horribly addictive and could even make your heart or lungs stop cold.

Still, it wasn’t the drugs that made the Viper a man to be feared. It was his utter ruthlessness. It was one thing to be amoral or even immoral. Both were common in drug dealers. To rule that world required an ability to destroy anything and anyone who showed the least bit of weakness.

Including a twelve-year-old girl. “What did you do to him?”

She sniffed and reached for a tissue. I keep them on the client’s side of the desk. I had to stretch if I needed one. “I was supposed to carry some product for him—take it to the mall and give it to the client. It was simple. Everyone said it was so simple, and the pay was good.”

“But it wasn’t simple. Was it? What went wrong?”

Her face blushed so hard I thought she’d catch on fire. “They were in balloons. You know, so they wouldn’t show up on the sniff sensors at the mall entrances. I swallowed them the night before and was supposed to … pass them, clean them off, and deliver them.”

Um. Eww. I’d never really thought about the realities of the balloon thing. But logically, they wouldn’t decompose and could bend around the corners of the intestine. Still … double eww. “Okay. So you went to the mall, spotted the client, went to the bathroom, and…” I paused because a horrifying thought occurred to me. “Which mall?”

She nodded, knowing what I was asking. “Twin Palms.”

My hand went to my mouth. I wasn’t sure whether I was stifling a laugh or a scream. Her face contorted with the same blend of emotions. “They refurbished the bathrooms this spring.”

Another nod and more tears sprang up. “I hadn’t been there for a long time. My family, we can’t afford stores like that. I’d never seen toilets that automatically flushed.”

Crap. Literally. She’d passed the balloons and … swirlie city. No more drugs. “So you have no drugs, no money, and … what? You ran? Did you explain or just run?”

She had to blow her nose before responding. “I ran. Manuel, he went to see Jorge. He’d worked with him before. He’d convinced the Viper to give me a chance. He tried to explain, convince him we’d pay back the money. But the … bastard wouldn’t listen.” Her voice went harsh and was painful to hear. “He shot my brother and dumped the body in front of our house with a note pinned to his chest.”

Somehow I knew she really meant chest.

I sighed. “And you’re next.” She nodded, her lower lip trembling.

The problem was, she really was going to die. The Viper was known for being relentless when pissed. I couldn’t be with her every minute of every day. From what I’d read about him, right now he was targeting her personally. Unlike the Italian Mafia bosses, instead of trusting underlings with the dirty work, he liked to keep his hands bloody. But if he didn’t get her himself in a few days, he’d likely get bored and simply put out a contract on her. Then there would be dozens, if not hundreds, of people after her. And she would die.

“When did this happen? When did your brother die?”

The heartbreak on her face was hard to watch. “Two days ago. That’s when I came to see Mr. Ron. He’d helped my mama buy our house and I thought maybe—”

But Ron was a real estate attorney, not a criminal one. And even a criminal attorney couldn’t do much except convince Maria to do what was first on my mind, too. “Have you called the police? Told them what you know about the Viper?”

She shook her head, slowly at first and then quicker as if trying to shake the very idea out of her mind. Meaning she’d considered it. Maybe even to the point of dialing the phone. “No. I can’t. The police are afraid of him. They never come to that side of town. He’ll kill them, too, and they know it.”

I tried never to think ill of the police in the city. They did an amazing job. But I had to admit that there were more reports of violence on Federal Boulevard than there were reports of arrests and convictions. Either Encarcion was really talented at concealing evidence of his crimes or the cops were afraid. I was betting it was talent over fear. Which could make my life very, very short if I took this job. “Is there anywhere you could stay for a while? Somewhere out of town?” It was not as much an admission of defeat as of reality.

She didn’t argue, which said she wasn’t too brave for her own good. “I have an aunt in Iowa. So you’re saying there’s no hope? What about Mama and Papa?”

“There’s always hope.” I believed that and tried to convince Maria with my face and body. “If you’d been more than just a mule, there would be more hope. If you knew something important that could be traded to the authorities for protection…” I let the sentence hang, praying she hadn’t come completely clean.

She stared at my Rolodex and nibbled on her lower lip. I watched her anxiously. I wanted so much for her to have an out of this, to have a bright future that was worth her brother’s sacrifice. “I know Jorge will be at Smallmouth Harbor on Saturday night to pick up a load of cocaine from South America. He plans to kill the captain and sink the boat so he doesn’t have to pay for it.”