Fierce Lessons (Ghosts & Demons Series Book 3) (12 page)

“But Mommy! She’s
beautiful!
”

I smiled at the girl and waved. “Thank you, Ryder! I think you’re beautiful, too! Inside and out!”

The girl gaped at me. “Mommy, she knows my name!”

“Ryder is a lovely name,” I called as we passed. “I’ve never heard it until now.” I winked at her mother. “It’s a day for firsts, isn’t it? Have a great day! Or make it one!”

Manny and Wilmington blew kisses to the boy gawking at us. The dad fumbled with his phone to get a picture. I glanced back at my crew. It felt good to be out in public like this. It felt great not to hide.

Maybe it was Manny and Wilmington flanking me — or maybe this was a demon power I was only just discovering — but I didn’t feel sick to my stomach talking to strangers like that. I didn’t care about Ryder’s mother and her disapproving stare.
 

Walking into a waffle house in full armor surrounded by my allies in the Choir Invisible made me feel stronger. Disapproval didn’t matter. I knew we’d have to go back into hiding, of course. The Choir Invisible is a covert operation for good reason. That afternoon, though? We walked tall in the sunlight.

Psymon and Minnie ran ahead to open the front doors for us.

“It’s not demon power,” Psymon said. “This is just like performing on stage. That unfamiliar feeling you’re getting right now is confidence.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And stay out of my horned head.”

“No promises.”

The hostess was a teenager named Sue, judging by her name tag. Menus in hand, her eyes went wide as we crowded in.

The clatter and chatter of the busy restaurant stopped. Everything went so quiet, I could pinpoint the heavy breathing from a big guy in the corner stuffed into a yellow and red
Ironman
t-shirt. Close by, I heard the irritated rumble of a middle aged woman digesting the first half of a churro.

What I hadn’t known about the Ra was that letting out my demon half would make me hungrier. The aroma of hot food made my mouth water and I craved bacon and rich, dark coffee.

“Um…uh…what are you guys supposed to be?” Sue asked.

Wilmington leaned forward and whispered, not unkindly, “Customers. Very hungry customers.”

“Um…uh…”

The guy in the
Ironman
shirt stood and pointed. His mouth dropped open. I spotted half chewed guacamole before I could look away. He wasn’t staring at me, though. The big guy rushed forward and stuck out his hand. “Patton Oswalt! I’m your number one fan! I listen to everything you do. I watch everything you do. I saw you in Austin last year!”

Psymon smiled and pumped the man’s hand.

“That bit you do about the circus? Man, I laughed my ass off. And, ‘I want all the ham!’ I could
be
that guy! Let me ask you, of all your bits, what’s your favorite joke?”
 

“I like all the ones where I make you think I’m somebody else.”

The man laughed but I’m sure he didn’t know why.

Psymon turned to the restaurant hostess. “Do you have some tables for my friends and me? We’re going to a Comic Con and just want to grab a quick bite.”

Looking flustered, Sue glanced down at her seating chart.

“If you shove a couple of tables together by the booth at the back, we can all squeeze in,” Psymon added helpfully. “We can wait while you clear the table. My new number one fan wants to take pictures with all of us, don’t you, Tim?”

The man in the
Ironman
t-shirt looked quizzical. “How’d you know my name?”

“Oh, you told me when you introduced yourself. Don’t you remember?”

“I…I…uh — ”

“I’ve got a good memory,” Psymon said. “For instance, at my concert in Austin, you sat toward the back on the right, beside a pillar.”

“Wow,” Tim said. “That’s right. How could you know that?”

“I never forget a face, Tim.”

Wilmington and Manny and I smiled at each other. I put my arms around their waists and squeezed until their feet came off the ground.

As we waited for our tables, several more restaurant patrons stepped forward asking for pictures and autographs. The pictures were fun. I have no idea what people do with celebrity autographs but Psymon was gracious enough to give out plenty.

Several people asked to touch my horns and I was feeling so unselfconscious, I let them.
 

“Wow!” one girl said. “Those feel so real! And the details on your armor, it’s like…you guys are the hottest cosplayers I’ve ever seen. You take it
deep!
”

“Patton, where’s the Comic Con?” Tim asked.

“Private function. Fundraiser to get more canes to people who need canes. Down at the Hearst Castle in San Simeon.”

“Sick!”

“Brad and Angelina are behind it,” Psymon lied. “It’s their latest cause.”

I don’t remember the meal. I don’t recall all the hands I shook or hugs I got from happy strangers. But I’ll always remember Ryder, the little girl who called me beautiful.

Lesson 174: Everyone should get to feel loved like a celebrity just once. All that fan love is probably why Brangelina still look so good.

Before long, there would be fewer of us. When the killing begins, it’s good to have a kind memory — anything as sweet as little Ryder — to hold on to. Wherever you are and whatever you do, Ryder, thank you for being you.

Later, when I was tempted to lose hope, picturing that little girl’s face reminded me what I was fighting for.

16

T
he waffle house was fun but I vowed to stay out of sight and run the operation from the van when we got to Palo Alto. We had the demon’s house number from Google maps, but all we could see from the street view was a tall gate and shrubbery that obscured a house far back from the road.

I assigned my crew to perform undercover recon of the comings and goings of Alphonso de Spina and his Circle of Knives.

Psymon, dressed for anonymity in a baseball cap and huge sunglasses that made him look blind, went to work. The mind reader pointed out each of the demon mage’s bodyguards as they passed him in the street. We found them on the Stanford campus, at the grocery store and at a local shop called ZombieRunner. Weirdly, the store called ZombieRunner sold both running shoes and, according to Psymon, excellent coffee.

After we watched the Circle of Knives for a couple of days, the mission’s senior staff gathered in the back of my van in an Arby’s parking lot. Spider, Psymon, Wil, Manny, Devin Anguloora and I considered the task ahead.

Manhattan was first to speak. “Before we get down to the bone crunching, I have to ask. Why is a demon teaching physics?”
 

“Chronos has walked the Earth for many centuries,” Anguloora said. “He has found a safe place to hide. His motivations should not interest you. Capture is all that is important.”

“But how? People don’t notice he never gets older?”
 

“A glamor spell could do that,” I said.

“Chronos is very powerful,” Anguloora said. He pointed at Psymon. “Just as this one reads minds, this demon has the power to cloud minds.”

“Like the Shadow?” Wilmington asked.

“Think bigger than that,” the archer said. “Think about him too long and maybe you forget why you were thinking about him.”

“Some of the most powerful spells I’ve seen have to do with messing with memory,” Psymon said. “Memory is so fragile. Our minds need so much refreshing. From a neurobiological point of view, the neuron responsible for holding on to your own name is reminded constantly by using it. If you didn’t use your name constantly, theoretically, you could forget it.”

Manny smiled. “I remember every pornographic image I’ve ever seen. I’ve got a photographic memory for that.” She leered at Wilmington. “I remember
everything
.”

“Down, girl,” Wilmington said. She turned to Psymon. “I know what you mean. Sometimes I’ll look at the time. I know I’ve seen what time it is but I have to look again and again. Same with locks and turning a stove off. I know I’ve checked but I have to check again.”

“Yeah, memory’s tricky,” Psymon said. “Eyewitnesses see the same accident and report vastly different occurrences. Our justice system is based on eyewitness testimony, which is scary.”

“My favorite trick of memory is when you try to remember a word and the harder you try, the more it eludes you,” I said. “It feels like it’s literally on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t get there by trying too hard. Think of something else for a while and the word comes back to you. It’s like trying to look at a faint star. To catch sight of it with the naked eye, astronomers tell you to look at the spot beside the star, not right at it.”

“Destinesia,” Psymon said.

We all looked at him and we all said, “What?” at the same time.

“Destinesia,” he repeated. “You get up and go into the kitchen. You forget why you went into the kitchen. You walk out of the room. Then you remember you were looking for the scissors and you head back into the kitchen.”

“Did you make that up?” Manny asked.

“There’s quite a science to it. Something about going through a doorway makes our brains reset when we’re in a new environment. Doorways are portals that suck out your short-term memory. We switch gears into looking for something novel and we’re programmed to let go of — ”

“Hey!” I said. “Can we get back to how we’re going to capture a demon mage who can make us forget who he is? Merlin says that if we call him out by name, he has to show himself.”

“Calling him Chronos in uncontrolled circumstances is probably a terrible idea,” Spider said. “As long as Alphonso de Spina is still the mild mannered professor in human form, he might be easier for you to handle.”

The first eight beats of the theme song from an old television show told us a sword singer was knocking at the van’s side door. The code was Victor’s. It was a strange little quirk of our training. I had never actually seen an episode of
Green Acres
but I had heard the theme song on YouTube. Catchy, and apparently a favorite of the Choir’s head conductor.

Manny slid the door back and Minnie stood before us in a pink belly shirt, white shorts and flip flops.
 

“Report,” I said.

“The grounds are huge. I spotted just two bodyguards smoking and drinking on the terrace.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “The Circle of Knives is always six. Two guards per shift, three eight-hour shifts per day. That leaves each guard free to enjoy eternal youth for most of the day.”

“And be complacent,” Manny said. “They haven’t had any trouble so they aren’t expecting any. Let’s go get ’em.”

“How far away are the other bodyguards?”

“The rest are in a house down the hill.”

“How far?”

Minnie thought about it. “If an alarm goes up, they can get back to the demon’s house in a few minutes. Driving, two minutes. Running, a bit longer. They like their car, though. They drive back and forth in a classic. It’s a beat-up Barracuda. There’s something about the way the grill comes over the lights that makes it look mean.”

Anguloora sighed. “So the demons’ bad guys have a mean car. What does the mage drive?”

“A tweaked up Jag, sir. Judging from the sound of the engine, it’s modified for speed. It’s hotter than the devil’s anus.” Minnie apparently knew her cars.

“We’ve done the recon and we know when the shifts change,” I said. “The guards are never far away. Whatever we do, we don’t want civilians in the crossfire.”

“Whatever we do,” Anguloora said, “we’ll be met with heavy resistance. There may need to be civilian casualties to allow us to get close to the demon.”

“I am not interested in entertaining a conversation about what number is acceptable for civilian deaths, Mr. Anguloora.”

He gave me a look but said nothing. I pictured him on my back again, doing his Yoda imitation.
And that is why you fail.

“Suggestions?” I looked from face to face.

“We have the box that dampens his powers,” Spider said. “We have to get him in the box before he says anything.”

“Yeah. But how?” A twitch at Wil’s lips caught my attention. She wanted to say something. “Let’s hear it, Wilmington.”

“The demon is so powerful he can make us forget why we’re here. He can kill us at will. We have to look non-threatening to get close.”

I nodded. “The Irish say, ‘May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.’ ”

Psymon looked in my eyes and smiled. “Ooh. I like that idea! Bonus points for fun. Even better if you don’t get killed halfway up the driveway.”

“What’s the idea?” Manny asked.

“You’ll love it,” Psymon said. “It’s very
Charlie’s Angels
.”

Lesson 175: If you aren’t careful, your trap can snap down on you, too. To get out, you might have to chew your arm off.

As soon as Psymon said
Charlie’s Angels
, I should have come up with a better plan.

17

T
he operation started off well. They usually do. Of course, when any operation is going too well, you can be sure something is going to go horribly wrong.

The campus had pretty much emptied out after the end of the term and Christmas was only a couple of days away.

It didn’t feel like Christmas to me, not with all that California heat. However, the van’s radio pumped out an endless stream of Christmas songs on a loop. I love
Christmas in Killarney.
I hate
Jingle Bell Rock.
And the station only played
Snoopy and the Red Baron
once. That wasn’t nearly enough.

In all the time we had watched the house, Psymon and Dallas had only spotted our target once. They described Alphonso de Spina as a large, barrel-chested man with long black hair and one streak of white shot through it from a deep widow’s peak.

He appeared on the terrace at the front of his home for a moment. The video was blurry. However, it turned out Dallas could draw and when he showed the portrait he drew from memory, Psymon confirmed it was very lifelike and accurate.

When I went over my plans for the kidnapping with Anguloora, he looked skeptical. “What if the dude just tells his henchmen, ‘Release the hounds’?”