A Devil in the Details (23 page)

“Dude, you okay?” Will nudged my arm, frowning. “You look constipated.”

“Shut up, asshole.” I swatted him and did my best to drag my brain out of work thoughts. “Get me a beer.”

“On it.” Yeah, they’d noticed my leg. There was no way Will would have agreed to fetch if they thought I was fully functional. For a few brief moments, I debated going to get my own beer, just for pride’s sake, but good sense won out for a change.

We settled with beers and some nachos of dubious quality right as the game started. I managed not to grimace when I stood up for the national anthem. As the innings started ticking by, I completely forgot my sore leg, and demon contracts, and soulless pitchers.

By some miracle, we were winning in the fifth inning (3-2) with runners on first and second when the hot dog vendor wandered through the section, giving the usual “Hot dogs, getchyer hot dogs here!” chant. I’m not sure what made me look over, seeing as how I didn’t want a hot dog. But look I did, and the vendor met my eyes.

He looked to be fiftyish, potbellied, with dark hair and a spindly mustache. The deep tan of his skin spoke of something exotic in his heritage, be it Hispanic or something else. He grinned at me, flashing a gold front tooth, and his eyes gleamed red for a split second.

My stomach dropped to somewhere around my feet. “Oh hell.”

T
he hot dog vendor ambled up the stairs, carefree as all get out, still hawking his wares. I scrambled over Marty to follow him, committing alcohol abuse in the process.

“Dude, my beer!” Marty gave me a dripping wet glare, but I hardly noticed.

I made up something about using the john and buying a new beer and hurried up the cement stairs as fast as my leg would allow. The vendor got to the top of the stairs without pausing to make a single sale, then made a left toward the next aisle.

“Hey, watch it, buddy!” A businesswoman in a pin-striped suit gave me a glare when I lurched into her, my leg betraying me with every step. She muttered curses after me as I mumbled an apology and kept climbing. I didn’t remember our seats’ being so far down the section before, but the top seemed impossibly far away.

When I reached the peak, the man-demon was gone. I turned in a slow circle, eyes searching the aisles for the dark-haired hot dog vendor, but he had vanished into thin air. Had it been Axel, causing his usual trouble, or someone else? Given Axel’s little display of shape-shifting earlier, I had no doubt he could take on any form he wanted. If I stopped to think about it, that was a little scary—okay, a lot scary.

The river of baseball fans parted to pass around me, the crazy man standing in the middle of the walkway. I thought about asking if they’d seen a hot dog vendor, but on some level I knew they hadn’t. I limped over to lean against a concrete pillar near the men’s bathroom, intending to rest my leg for a moment before I began the trek back down to my seat.

“Hide-and-seek, peekaboo.” Warm breath wafted over my left ear, and I swung before I thought. It was a rather pretty backhand sweep, technically perfect in every way, but I sensed my target duck before I ever laid eyes on him. I pulled the blow a hairbreadth from slamming my hand into the pillar.

Axel, in his blond Mohawk punker guise again, stood up from a low crouch, whistling. “A swing and a miss!” He grinned, lounging against a trash can. “Scared ya?”

My heart thundered in my ears, and the adrenaline washed away all traces of pain in my right leg. I held the loose fighting stance for long moments, until it became clear Axel wasn’t moving.
Idiot.
Of course he wasn’t moving. He couldn’t hurt me unless I gave permission. I forced my hands to relax at my sides, just another guy standing near the bathrooms at a baseball game.

“What do you want?” Man, I was sick of hearing myself say those words.

“You were thinking about me. I came to see why.”

For a moment, I felt cold. Then reality slapped me in the face, and I gave him a disgusted look. “You can’t read minds.”

Axel snickered. “Well, no, but you should have seen the look on your face.”

“Was that you? The hot dog guy?”

His eyes, blue as any normal human’s when he wasn’t being all demonic, roamed the crowd around us. His nonchalance didn’t fool me for a moment. “Maybe I just like baseball. Did you ever think of that?”

“Not for a moment.” I still didn’t believe it, and it didn’t escape me that he hadn’t answered my question. “I don’t want you here.”

“Public place, Jesse. I’m a free-range demon here.”

I glanced around quickly to see if anyone had heard him. Of course, what would they think? A couple of loonies having a talk over a trash can? Had one too many brews, maybe? “Leave these people alone.”

He laughed. It was a joyful, rich sound. It was my laugh. Shouldn’t demons have nasty, evil laughs? “What, you’re going to take responsibility for the entire stadium? I indulge you too much by letting you extend your protection to your coworkers as it is. Even you aren’t worth giving up all of this.” His sweeping gesture took in the whole stadium, and maybe the world beyond. “You’re good, Jesse. You’re not that good.”

“So . . . what? You’re here hunting souls?”

The demon shrugged his lanky shoulders and sighed. “Nah, one of the others pretty much has the baseball market sewed up tight. I think you’ve met him.” I hated that grin; that smug I-know-more-than-you smirk. “I just came out to annoy you, taunt you, generally make myself a pest.”

“Mission accomplished. You can go now.” Dammit, I spilled Marty’s beer for this? I knew I was glaring when I turned to walk away, and I didn’t care who saw it.

“Whoa, hold on! I’ve done the annoying bit, but I still have some taunting to get in.” He grabbed my elbow, and something snapped between us like a bad static shock. With a hiss, Axel snatched his hand back, shaking it. “Damn protection spells . . .”

Mira. All her gods bless her. I did my best to look as if I knew that was going to happen. “You know, those only work against people who mean me harm. You got something you wanna tell me, Axel?”

The blond man snorted, flexing his fingers one at a time to see if they still worked. “I want your soul. It doesn’t get much more harmful than that.” He cradled his hand close to him now. It may have felt like a static shock to me, but he was hurt—interesting. “And yes, there’s a lot I want to tell you, but I can’t just blurt it out. There are rules, Jesse, and I’m as bound by them as you are. I shouldn’t even be doing this much, but there are certain things you
need
to know!”

Across the concrete walkway, two small boys started tussling in the popcorn line. The noise drew my attention long enough to be sure the parents were going to separate them, and then I looked back to my pet demon. Axel’s gaze came back to my face. He’d been watching the kids fight, too.

“If this is so against the rules, why would you risk so much to help me?”

“Maybe I like you.” I rolled my eyes, and he smirked. “Maybe, if I can’t have you, nobody can. I’ve put a lot of work into you, Jesse James Dawson. I’ll be damned again if I let one of the others get you.”

I was more inclined to believe that.

“And just what do you want from me? Nothing you know is worth my soul.” I immediately wanted to kick my own ass. Never enter negotiations with a demon. Don’t even give them two fives for a ten. It starts bad habits, like a gateway drug.

“Not your soul . . . maybe something smaller, something you can bear to part with. Harmless really.” His smile was oh so charming. If the goose bumps on my arms got any bigger, I was going to sprout feathers.

Voices rose in anger behind me. The parents of the brawling children had apparently taken exception to each other’s existence, and the fathers were shouting obscenities at each other. One of them had on a #1 DAD T- shirt. Two security guards, in their neat blue pseudo-cop uniforms, hustled over to take control of the situation.

“Maybe . . . a name. Your daughter’s name. Give me that, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

I couldn’t keep my eye on the fight and Axel both, and it was making me edgy. My hand flexed at my hip where my sword should be. “You know her name already.”

“Exactly! No harm in it . . . Just . . . give me her name, and I can tell you the things you need to know.”

I may not be a religious man. I may not even be widely educated in the ways of magic. But even I know that the giving of a name, known or not, can have power. Every culture that is or ever was has agreed on that. “No deal. And stay the hell away from my daughter.”

Not ten feet from us, a blonde in line for the women’s restroom drew back her hand and slapped the brunette next to her with a resounding crack. The two went down with shrill screams and the flailing of tanned arms and legs.

“Okay, one of your companions, then. The blacksmith . . . He’ll never miss it. You have to give me something! You need what I know!” The blond man-demon was all but wringing his good hand in frustration and dancing from foot to foot.

In disbelief, I watched one of the security guards draw a Taser from his belt and jab it into #1 Dad’s ribs. The combative man dropped like a stone, shrieking. The odor of urine wafted over the crowd as he wet himself.

Angry murmurs grew louder all around me, and three large men detached themselves from the swelling throng to descend on the hapless security guards. The women, meanwhile, had rolled into the legs of their line-mates, adding at least three more thrashing, pummeling figures to the chaos. The two conflicts slowly oozed toward each other, a blob that sought to be whole again.

I jerked my head back to the demon in time to see Axel lick his lips in satisfaction. “Such anger . . . so delicious . . .”

Realization hit me, as usual, a bit late. “It’s you. You’re doing this.”

“Give me something, and I’ll go away. . . .” The red glow sprang into his eyes again, and I was certain no one would ever notice in the chaos.

A third fight sprang up at the top of the stairs, the combatants tumbling down the concrete walkway into the seats before I could even see if they were male or female. Shouts from below told the tale of the spreading conflict.
Dear God and merciful Buddha all in one . . .
It leapt from person to person like a grass fire. And like a grass fire, it would burn as long as it had fuel—an entire baseball stadium full of fuel.

“Are you insane? You’ll start a riot!” I made a grab for Axel’s shirt, and he darted out of my reach faster than humanly possible. We played ring-around-the-rosy around the pillar for a few moments.

“Just a name, one name in exchange for all these people, and information you need . . . a bargain, really . . .” He poked his head around the pillar and grinned, caught somewhere between pleading and threatening. “You may as well give me the name. You can’t make me leave. . . .”

“Yes, I can.” My keys had been in my pocket. I didn’t remember getting them out, but they were in my hand now. I thumbed the cap off my mini Mace key chain and took a deep breath. The next time he peered around the column, I depressed the trigger.

I heard Axel shriek once, but with my eyes clenched tight shut I missed his actual exit. There was a faint pop as air rushed in to fill the space he abruptly vacated, and I knew he was gone. The angry shouts around me became startled exclamations, ending up as desperate coughing and gagging. The cloud of cayenne and cumin spread through the violent crowd, turning rage into an instinctive scramble for air and self-preservation.

I held my breath as long as I could, and even then I choked on a cloud of pepper when my body finally demanded oxygen. Eyes watering fiercely, I watched as the remnants of the crowd fled, leaving behind the wounded.

The blonde lay on the cement floor, a trickle of blood at the corner of her mouth as she gagged and coughed, too dazed to get out of the demon Mace spray. Her opponent was nowhere to be seen. Leaning against one of the massive support pillars was #1 Dad, keening like a wounded rabbit, cuffed and forgotten in the upheaval. Someone nearby was making horrible retching noises.

I wondered where the security guards went, until a strong hand grabbed my arm. “Sir, you’ll have to come with me.” Well, that’s what he tried to say, under the coughing and choking. I got the gist of it.

Twice in as many days, I had run afoul of security guards. Oh sure. I use a little Mace, banish a demon, break up a potential riot, and I’m the one who gets arrested. Mira was going to kill me. Somewhere, someone was finding this hilarious.

A
s it turned out, I was not arrested. Given that the fortuitous “breaking” of my Mace canister happened to end a rather ugly situation, the stadium authorities were willing to forgive and forget. I was, however, strongly encouraged to wait for my friends in the holding cell in the bowels of the stadium, and not to come back for the rest of the season. That one hurt. It hurt a lot.

From the conversations I overheard down there, the security guard with the Taser was in deep kimchi, too. Poor guy. I would try to explain to his bosses that he was under demonic influence, but I was pretty sure he wouldn’t appreciate the help.

Marty and Will, bastards that they were, watched the entire game before they came down to retrieve my scrawny ass. It gave me a lot of time to brood, while pretending to meditate.

Axel had been part of my life for the last two years, give or take. I couldn’t remember exactly when he’d turned up, inhabiting random local fauna, exchanging witty pleasantries over breakfast. But he’d resisted my best efforts to get rid of him. Once his continued presence was established, we’d set limits, laid down ground rules, and I thought no more on it. Not once had I seen him act . . . well . . . like a demon. Maybe I’d become complacent, forgetting that there was a fiend of Hell wrapped in whatever little furry body he’d chosen to possess for the day.