Fierce Lessons (Ghosts & Demons Series Book 3) Read online

  I couldn’t help but smile at that. Victor was the most clever and resourceful man I’d ever met. That’s probably why he was also the wealthiest man you’ve never heard of. If any conductor could lead the Choir Invisible to victory, I was sure he could.

  Hamilton parked the limo in a freight elevator.

  “This is my stop,” Manny opened her door.

  I reached out in a flash to grab Manny’s arm. “Do you have to go?”

  She winced. “Ow.”

  “Sorry.” I loosened my grip.

  “I do have to go,” she said. “Orders. If you plan to rip off my arm, I guess I could leave the forearm behind as long as you promise to give it back.”

  I let go immediately and I could see my friend was close to tears. She rubbed her arm.

  “I’m so sorry! I — ”

  “You don’t know your own strength. I know. It’s okay, butch. I’m used to bruises.” Manhattan leaned back into the car and brushed my cheek with a quick kiss, undoubtedly leaving a smear of bright red lipstick.

  “I’ll see you later. Your mom’s up there and you need some family time.”

  “You’re family,” I said.

  “Gee, I hope you like me more than that. I’ll catch you later. We’re back to bunking on the third floor.”

  “Not back to Church Avenue?”

  Manny gave me a serious look. I didn’t know she was capable of that kind of look, actually. “Tam, war and time wait for no woman.”

  “Or whatever I am.”

  “We need Iowa, now. Can you be her? I believe it, but do you?”

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah. Someone once told me that self-pity isn’t sexy.”

  “Whoever told you that was a damn genius.” Manny slammed the door and disappeared into the gloom of the parking garage.

  Soon a motor fired up and the freight elevator rose to the Keep’s ground level. We came back into the light and Hamilton drove the limo out to the edge of the archery courtyard.

  Victor and Mama waited for me. He wore a tuxedo and tails that reminded me of the little guy with the top hat on the Monopoly box. Mama wore light silver armor with bracelets decorated with golden dragons. I’d never seen Mama in armor. I would have been less surprised if she stood waiting there in green hair and clown makeup.

  As I got out of the car, I pasted on a smile no one believed, including me. “I don’t know which of you looks more…um…what’s the word?”

  “Natty?” Victor suggested.

  “Formidable?” Mama asked.

  “Ridiculous,” I said. “I mean…very natty, sir. And very Game of Thrones, Mama.”

  They both had the grace to laugh. Mama gave me a hug and stared in my eyes, studiously avoiding a single glance at the horns growing out of the top of my head.

  Victor did the same as he explained he’d just returned from a diplomatic function in Washington.

  “How’s the President?”

  “Actually, I was speaking with the Nunciature.”

  “The what now?”

  “The nuncio. The papal representative to the United States.”

  “Papal? As in the Vatican? The Pope?”

  “The very one. Short man. Wears white and a big hat in front of large crowds so they know it’s him.”

  “The Choir needs more priests to bless the holy ammo,” Mama said. “So? Aren’t you going to say anything nice about my new wardrobe? Victor gave it to me so act sincere.”

  Mama held her arms out to her sides and turned slowly. Instead of a sword, a sawn off shotgun was slung across her back.

  “Sir, if you’re going to give Mama a gun, I can see why you need more holy ammo. Are you a member of the Choir Invisible now, Mama? You can’t see ghosts.”

  “When the Ra enter our dimension I can see demons fine,” Mama said. “I’ll wait until I see the gold of their eyes. Then it’s all bam-bam, bam-bam, wham-bam, thank you, Ma’am.”

  “We need your mother’s talents in the pharmacy more than her skills with a shotgun,” Victor said. “I thought you’d like her armor. She’ll be safer in it than out of it, don’t you agree?”

  “It’s safer and cozy against the winter wind, too,” Mama said. She smiled and leaned closer, as if Victor couldn’t hear her. “Though getting in and out of all this to go to the bathroom is a bit of a chore.”

  “Mama!”

  “No wonder knights of old had squires to get them in and out of all this gear.”

  “We have altered the armor to streamline that process,” Victor said, “but yes, it’s a good idea not to wait for the last minute.”

  “I do like your armor, Mama. Wear it a lot. We never know when the Ra will hit us again.”

  “A new outfit and a loaded 12 gauge do ease my mind,” Mama said. “Good advice for any woman at any time, I think. When the war is over, I might keep the armor and the shotgun. I’d like to move back to Texas. I wouldn’t really raise many eyebrows walking into a CVS dressed like this back in Amarillo as long as I switched to Kevlar.”

  “Have you been watching the news?” I asked.

  “Medicament is already fading from CNN and FOX,” she said. “MSNBC is trying to keep the story alive with panic graphics. Still, the government is sweeping it under the rug quick. I already got my disaster relief check, believe it or not.”

  My hometown was a pile of smoking rubble. I’d turned off the television, but then a podcast from Rachel Maddow came up on my phone and it was all bomb train this and bomb train that. Little do the Normies know, not all bomb trains are accidents.

  Victor cleared his throat, obviously tired and ready to move on to Choir business. “Your father — ”

  I bristled. “Peter Smythe. Call him Peter Smythe, please.”

  Rich and powerful men in fancy tuxes aren’t used to being interrupted. Victor nodded and began again. “Peter had plans for you that didn’t work out. We don’t expect he’ll send Ra troops after you again.”

  “Why not?”

  “Even if he does come after us,” Mama said, “it won’t matter. Victor’s working on a plan to block the Ra and keep them in their dimension.”

  “When we lost the Keep’s library, I’d lost hope that we could fortify the walls between dimensions,” Victor said. “I am working with the Magicals on a plan.”

  My boss from Castille was on my mind and the memory was heavy with sadness and fear. The last time I saw Samantha Biggs, she was tied to a desk in the middle of an inferno. “If we’re going to brick up the bridges between dimensions, doesn’t that also mean Sam will be marooned in Ra? The demons could have killed her but they didn’t. If you plan to mount a rescue mission to get Sam back, I want in, sir.”

  Mama looked worried. “You’re willing to chase her into another dimension?”

  The thought terrified me but I didn’t want Mama to know. “I never got a chance to see Europe. Think of the rescue mission as a poor substitute for that band trip to England I missed out on because I got mono in 11th grade.”

  Victor looked at his feet. “I’m working on a plan in that regard. Samantha was…very dear to me, as you know.”

  A former lover. That’s what I knew.

  “I’m not keen on sending any members of the Choir across any rifts. Bridges work two ways and we’re very vulnerable if we open that possibility.”

  “But if there’s a chance to get Sam back — ”

  “Like I said, I’m working on a plan.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s complicated.” Victor shrugged. “We’ll just have to see how that plot unfolds.”

  The message was clear. His plan was top secret and I wasn’t on top.

  “I’m back in training,” I said. “When you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be ready.”

  “The plan might come together sooner than your readiness,” Victor said. “If this works, we’ll take the fight to the demons instead of playing defense. Train hard.”

  Mama and I didn’t talk about my horn
s and Victor didn’t mention them, either.

  Lesson 156: The stuff we don’t want to talk about is the stuff we should talk about. For instance, make your will now. Estate planning is so important for old people and young warriors.

  3

  As I walked into the Keep’s mess for breakfast, the Choir Invisible stopped. Every singer turned to me and went quiet. They stared at my horns as if I had walked in wearing a hat made of dead babies. Then the whispers hit. They thought I couldn’t hear them. Idiots.

  “There she is.”

  “I thought they’d be like antlers, like the others.”

  “Daughter of a demon.”

  “Daughter of a traitor.”

  “Which side is she on now?”

  I can’t blame them. We’d been trained to hate demons. We’d only thought we knew what demons were about.

  Okay, I could blame them. I did blame them. The singers thought of themselves as badass protectors of Earth, but now at least some of them were turning on me because of one similarity with the enemy.

  Some of them sounded angry. I wondered how many more demons I’d have to kill before they accepted me as one of them again.

  Lesson 157: Righteous anger doesn’t make you turn on your own kind. It only looks like anger. It’s fear that changes people. I know because I could smell the terror wafting off them, especially the ones that made the most angry noises.

  They weren’t all questioning my loyalty, but enough were that I wanted to do something bad to them. If they were going to condemn me anyway, I wanted to justify those suspicions with a little relaxing violence. (“Relaxing violence.” That was my demon half talking. Maybe the Choir should have been afraid of me.)

  But I’d fought an invasion alongside many of these people. I’d fought for these people. Add a couple of devil horns and people lose their minds. Actually, I’d been losing my mind over it a little bit, too. That didn’t make their easy betrayal any easier to stomach. I hated them a little bit for all those stony stares.

  Wilmington took my arm. “The eggs are powdered today. Skip ’em. The oatmeal’s real, though.”

  “Real oatmeal and the mean, homicidal stares of the masses of Mr. and Mrs. MacJudgypants. Groovy.”

  “Ignore them,” Wil said. “By the way, I don’t know if anyone has brought this up to you, but nice, pointy horns, Iowa!”

  “Horns? What horns? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Good girl.”

  “I’m hearing rumors spread. Right now. I can hear them.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “I want to kill about half these people.”

  Wil frowned. “That would seem to work for their argument and against yours.”

  “Well, yeah, but I’d feel better.”

  “Did you ever feel that way before? Before the…you know.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Let’s put off murdering anyone until after breakfast, shall we? It’d be a large undertaking on an empty stomach.”

  “If you insist.”

  We joined the food line and, as if a bell had rung, the room started moving again. I heard mumbles that made me want to jump on a table and tell them my home town had been blown off the map. Then it occurred to me that the fact that Medicament was lost on my watch might feed the flames instead of dousing them.

  Stomach churning, I left Wilmington in the food line and went straight for the coffee station. The crowd parted. It seemed no one’s eyes met mine. They stared at my horns instead. I guessed all this attention must be what walking around with big boobs must be like, but with even less respect.

  To avoid confrontation, I sat at an empty table at the far end of the room. I needn’t have bothered. Confrontation followed me.

  “Hey, Iowa. Got a minute? We want to pick a bone.”

  I looked up slowly from my coffee. One of the Spook Squad stood over me, arms crossed. I should have known it would be one of the CIA’s remote viewers that would get amped up enough to come at me first. I searched for this one’s name. Manny called him, “the muscly one.” The tag on his camo told me his name was Douglas.

  “Do you have any idea how much shit my people had to put up with from your people after we got here?” Douglas asked.

  Behind him, Wil and Manny sifted out of the crowd by the coffee station. They left their trays behind to come stand on either side of the spook. He ignored them and focused his fury on me.

  “When we came here to help you people, we put out the call that there was at least one demon within our walls. Guess one of them was you. Was the other your brother? How many spies are walking among us right now because you people didn’t take us seriously? You treat what we do as a joke, but we were right all along.”

  “I don’t know about spies within our walls,” I said. “And Trick was my half-brother.”

  “I think you mean half-breed. My point is — ”

  He stopped, raised his head and stiffened. The tip of Manny’s knife sat just under his chin.

  “Here’s my point,” she said. “Like it?”

  Douglas swallowed hard and I watched his Adam’s apple bob. When he spoke, all the bass that he’d put in his voice to try to bully me had leaked away. “What are you doing?”

  The whole Choir was still again, watching and listening, but Manny and Douglas had their back turned to the room. No one but me could see the knife and only Douglas felt its sharp tip.

  The guys at the Spooks table knew something was wrong, though. They all stood and Wilmington turned to face them, her hands on the pommels of the twin swords at her hips.

  They stared.

  Wilmington stared back.

  They were unarmed. The Spooks wisely sat back down.

  “Manhattan,” I said in a low tone meant only for her. “Put that away. I’ll handle this.”

  “I’m getting his attention,” Manny said. “The Choir has a no discrimination policy. Black, Asian, White, LGBTQ…we’re all here, fighting the good fight. We even let this idiot in.”

  “As a black woman, I gotta say I get edgy when somebody says the words, ‘you people,’” Wil said. “And you say it a lot, Douglas.” Her gaze was still fixed on the remote viewers’ table. “This isn’t about us and them. The fight is going to be tough enough. If we don’t work together, the war’s already lost.”

  “How do we know this guy isn’t a demon spy?” Manny asked.

  “What? I’m a patriot!” Douglas was still frozen by the blade at his throat. He began to tremble.

  “Sewing the seeds of discontent and suspicion,” Manny said, cold as ice. “Sounds to me like something a demon spy might do, Mr. Douglas.”

  “This is outrageous! I — ”

  “Oh, you don’t like being accused of treason? You don’t like how that feels? Poor baby. We’ll get you something for that diaper rash,” I said.

  “You weren’t here when the real shit went down, Mr. Douglas,” Manhattan said. “You didn’t see what happened the day the library was blown up and the demons came. You didn’t see my girl here take down a red demon with nothing but a belt, a wooden sword and a pair of big brass ovaries. That was her first official day on the job, man.”

  “This is unacceptable,” he said.

  His cheeks flushed and I could see waves of heat rising from his head.

  “Manny,” I said. “Be cool. I mean…cooler.”

  Manhattan made her blade disappear as suddenly as it had appeared. I spotted the sleight of hand — a hidden sleeve in her left gauntlet. That’s a neat trick everyone should learn in debating club.

  I stood slowly and looked Douglas up and down. Remembering Manny’s trick in the limo, my eyes never left him, but I talked loud enough for everyone present to hear.

  “You lost face,” I said. “I didn’t know I was half-demon. I didn’t know Trick was half-demon. Victor sent us away on a mission to unleash the demon in me so I could fight for the Choir. So…look at you and look at me. The little town where I grew up is gone and a lot of people are dead. Do
you really want to put up what you’ve lost against my losses, Mr. Douglas?”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed again. Its quivering movement reminded me of a small, fearful animal. Its motion felt like an invitation to rip it out and see what the little thing looked like in the light of day.

  “You and your team want some props?” I asked. “Fine. Your Spooks did spot something. Good for you. That’s what you’re here for. But you want more than that. You want heavy respect.”

  “I’ve earned it,” he said.

  “Sure. You dare to stand with us. But you aren’t with us, are you? Not really.”

  “That’s rich!” He raised his voice to match mine, performing for our audience. “Coming from somebody who looks like the things everyone in this room is sworn to kill — ”

  “You aren’t with us,” I said, “because you look down on us. You refuse to train with us. You think of us as a bunch of amateurs playing war. Not one of the Spooks has strapped on a sword or taken the name of the place you defend. You want respect? Show some.”

  He looked uncertain and hesitated. That’s when I knew I had him.

  “If you want to chat, sit at my table and tell me your life story or tell me a joke because I could sure use one right now. You might want to learn some charm. I mean, dude! Seriously! Some people here may not be sure about me, but before I got these horns, at least I can say I made a lot of friends. Nobody likes you.”

  By the look on his face, I couldn’t tell if this revelation was a possibility that had never occurred to him or a secret fear now realized. His jaw dropped and a bead of sweat rolled down his temple. He’d wanted an audience a minute ago. Now the Choir Invisible was a witness to his evisceration.

  (Verbal evisceration. Not the other kind…for now.)

  “Look, if you’ve come to accuse me of something, we can take it to the courtyard and duel about it with bokkens in an old fashioned Tombstone throw down. You ever see that movie? I’ll play Val Kilmer’s part and I will be your huckleberry. When I’m done, your new name will be Lumpy. But if all you want is to stand and jabber, you are boring me.”

  “I…uh — ”

  Manny leaned close and whispered, “Walk away, man. She’s already got your balls in her hand. Don’t make her squeeze ’em harder.”