5

Logan tried to mentally dissect where things went wrong as he smashed the Frenik demon’s head into the bar. “What don’t you fucking understand about “I come in peace”?!” he roared, as another demon grabbed him from behind. Logan slammed back his elbow repeatedly, until he heard bones break and the demon make a noise that was the opposite of enjoyment. Another came at him with a knife, aiming a hunting blade at his gut, but he was able to sidestep while grabbing his arm and twisting it with a violent jerk, breaking the arm and dislocating the shoulder at the same time. To add insult to injury, he threw him into another demon, and they both went down in a heap.

There wasn’t much variations in their attacks. Someone hit him on the head with a whiskey bottle, and then someone else grabbed his arm from behind, opening up his midsection for a rather spiky looking demon to attack him with his claws. Logan stamped down on his leg, shattering the spiky demon’s kneecap, and snapped his head back, smashing the nose of the demon holding him. Both went down screaming, and another demon swung a chair at him. He got his claw up in front of his face just in time, so the chair shattered on impact with it, but a splinter flew into his eye. He winced and slashed out blindly, sure he hit his target by the wet noise and choked yelp of pain that followed, and just feeling the breeze of a body made him guess and throw back a claw blindly. Yep, he hit something.

The burning in his eyes faded, and he opened them just in time to see the horn headed bartender pull out a rifle from beneath the bar. He ducked as the first blast echoed through the place, the demon closest to him taking a gut load of buckshot, and slashed through the rifle barrel as he jumped over the bar. He intended to head butt the guy, but the horns promised to make that an iffy proposition, so he simply said, “Sorry,” and rammed a knee into his groin. He sagged, dropping the remains of the rifle, and was going to hit the floor, only Logan had a hold of his collar and didn’t let him go. “I just wanna know where Ergold is, that’s all. I wasn’t here to cause trouble!”

In retrospect, he should have known it wouldn’t go easy. Just from the vividly hateful stares that he received upon entering the bar, he should have known he was recognized as the Decapitator, and demons this drunk just had to challenge him. Was there ever a drunk male who could resist the urge to do something mind blowingly stupid? Testosterone and alcohol was a lethal mix.

Horn guy, whose face was still crumpled in pain, gasped, “I don’t know -”

“Yes, yes you do. I can even smell when you’re lyin’, and you smell like moss. You want to try again, or do you lose your other ball?”

Tears of pain ran down his face, and Logan wondered if his complexion was usually this chartreuse, or if this was due to the smashed testicle. “I don’t know where he is now. But he’s probably shooting craps over at Smoke and Mirrors.”

“See? Was that so hard?” He let him go, and he hit the floor like a boat anchor.

On his way out of the bar he cut off someone’s arm - well, he shouldn’t have tried to sucker punch him - and grabbed a miraculously unbroken beer bottle off a still standing table. He drank it on the way to Smoke and Mirrors.

Smoke and Mirrors was a Human, magic obsessed bar on the fringes of the demon section of town. And magic obsessed not in the sense of real magic, but the David Copperfield type magic. He expected that guy from Arrested Development to be out front pulling dead doves from his pants - that’s how fucking tacky the place looked.

As he approached the neon lit façade - the sign was of a disembodied hand pulling a rabbit out of a top hat in buzzing neon - he heard voices that seemed to be around back, not inside. There was an alley that cut around the back of the place so he went down it, and heard a couple of distinct male voices cursing and saying things like “Sixes!” Which made sense. Demons were hardly going to play craps in a Human magic club, were they?

Just by the smell alone, it seemed Ergold was playing with a bunch of Slime demons. There were four of them and him in the back of the place, where the alley dead ended against a Dumpster. He slunk down in the shadows, watching them roll the dice, diss each other, collect money and throw it down. The only demon without a dripping rack of antlers looked a bit like a humanoid skink: it had smooth bright green skin, with a flat, oval face set off by large, slightly bulbous gold and white eyes. It had no hair, nor ears or nose; he had a pair of holes in the center of his face instead, and ear holes covered by tiny flaps on either side of his head. In an odd kind of way, he was almost adorable; he seemed like some kind of spokesdemon just waiting to happen. But the wide lapeled, violently purple suit he was wearing killed the idea - it was like something a ‘70’s movie pimp would wear, right down to the silk paisley shirt. The fact that the suit clashed both with the shirt an! d his skin seemed like a colossal joke. How could he not be aware of it? Was he colorblind?

After a moment of visually appraising them - he doubted any were carrying weapons; they probably figured being demon was enough - he wandered out of the shadows and let them see him. They were so wrapped up in their craps game it actually took a minute, and even then a slime demon met him with a dismissive, “No Humans allowed in the game.”

“I’m not here for the game,” he replied. “I’m here for Ergold.”

The little skink guy looked up at squinted at him. “I don’t know you, do I?” He had the voice of a cartoon frog; it was mostly a bit high, but had a kind of throaty undertone.

“You will. You’re coming with me.”

He made a noise that sounded like a rabbit sneezing - he assumed it was some kind of scoff. “No I’m not. Go away.”

Logan popped one set of claws, the ones in his right hand. “I’m not takin’ no for an answer.”

Now all the demons were staring at him. “Holy shit!” One of the slime demons exclaimed. He held the dice currently and was wearing a “Show Me Your Tits” t-shirt. “You’re that … uh … guy … the Deceptirator.”

That wasn’t even a word! What the hell was he, the George Bush of demons? “Decapitator.”

“That’s what I said.”

They all seemed possessed of a certain fearful tension, which was only correct. Ergold had straightened up from his crouch, but in a way that made him look like a wary gecko. “What the fuck you want with me? I never hurt nobody.”

“Bob wants to talk to you.”

And Logan thought they were scared before. Suddenly the slime demons stood up, as if they’d just gotten an electric cattle prod to the ass, and quickly gathered the last of the dice and the money. “Well, we’re done. C’mon guys, I hear they have two for one plates of wings down at the Pussycat Parlor tonight.”

“Hey!” Ergold squeaked. “What about me?”

The guy in the “Show Me Your Tits” t-shirt just shrugged. “Good luck to ya. Call us if you live.” They walked past Logan, giving him as wide a berth as possible. Very soon enough, it was just him and Ergold.

Ergold picked something up off the ground and put it on his head as he stood up. Logan had thought it was some kind of flat hat, like a beret, but as Ergold plopped it on his bald scalp and centered it on his head, Logan saw it was a toupee. A stunningly awful one, slightly less realistic than Donald Trump’s sad excuse for hair, it was black and fluffy in a way that actual hair wasn’t unless you had a big problem with static electricity. Also, since he was a naturally hairless demon, having this big furry thing perched on his head made no sense at all, unless someone had tricked him into thinking it was a hat. The only way it could have looked worse was if it had a chin strap. “Now, Bob should know I reformed. I’m not a -”

“What the fuck is that?”

The question seemed to baffle him. “What?”

“That polecat on your head. Why the fuck are you wearing it?”

He stiffened and patted his hair, like he was trying to calm it down. “This is not a polecat. I’ll have you know this is a custom designed hairpiece by Christo of Beverly Hills.”

“You mean you paid for it?”

If a lizard could be said to look affronted, he did. His nictitating membranes clicked like lonely castanets. “Should you be talking about hair, mammal? Yours looks like a helmet.”

“At least my hair isn’t skinned roadkill.”

Ergold scowled, which looked unsettling on a lipless and rather invisible mouth. “This is not skinned roadkill! This is real Human hair!”

“From someone’s pubes?”

“You’re a revolting little man, aren’t you?”

Logan shrugged. “I’ve been called worse. Now, are you gonna come along quietly, or do I hafta cut your legs off and carry you?”

That shut him up pretty quick. Fear made him smell like boiled snake.

On the walk back, he tried to ask several times what Bob wanted with him, but Logan just told him ominously that he’d find out, which not only made him go very quiet but made him tremble a bit. He was clearly considering bolting, but Logan reminded him he was just told to bring him, not bring him in one piece. He knew he shouldn’t be tormenting the demon so, but his suit and his hairpiece were really pissing him off. He had a feeling Bob disliked him for purely sartorial reasons, and if so, he could understand.

He brought the guy to the Way Station, as Bob didn’t want him to know where he lived. The bar was half empty, making Logan wonder if half of them had cleared off when they realized Bob was back. The jukebox started playing Statix X’s “I’m With Stupid”, which wasn’t a coincidence.

Bob came out of the back, and Logan gestured at Ergold. “Disco Stu, as ordered.”

Bob grinned at him in an openly predatory manner, until he focused on Ergold’s head, and then his grin collapsed. “What the fuck did you stick on his head, mate?”

“That is not my fault.”

“Hey!” Ergold snapped, reaching up to defensively pet his toupee. “It’s not like I picked it up at the Goodwill or something.”

“Course not,” Bob agreed. “You picked it up off the side of the road.”

Ergold stamped his foot. “Goddamn it, stop making fun of my hair!”

Bob looked at Logan in disbelief. “He’s really serious about it, isn’t he?”

Logan nodded. He couldn’t believe it either. Maybe he couldn’t see his own reflection?

Bob laid it out for Ergold quite simply - if he wanted to get off his immediate shit list, he’d look for and find the dimensional bubble that Bob was sure was around. It wasn’t like Ergold had a choice, but they all pretended he did. While Bob laid out a map of the downtown area and told Ergold where he wanted him to start looking, Ammy came out of the back holding a bottle of ginger beer. She looked like her usual self, meaning she was wearing combat books, black vinyl bicycle shorts over torn fishnet stockings, and a black t-shirt with “Nevermore” written across it in Gothic script. Her hair was still short and punky and as bright blue as her eyes and lips, and she seemed to have elaborate Maori style tattoos on both of her arms, encircling her biceps like bands. She’d gained a little weight since he’d last seen her, but she didn’t wear it badly. He was kind of hoping she’d ignore him, but no, she came clomping right over to him. “Where’s Angel?” she demanded. “He’s ma! de a dog’s dinner of this, he should be here.”

“The sun hasn’t set yet.”

“ I don’t give a toss. This is his balls up; he could find a way to get here.”

“Sweetheart,” Bob said, looking up from the map spread over the bar. “We don’t know where Reignet is. We’re not fighting yet.”

“I don’t care. He doesn’t need to be a clacker, does he?”

What was more charming about Ammy - her surly attitude or the fact that you needed subtitles half the time she talked? He would give her her due as a witch; she was very good, and having god blood obviously didn’t hurt. But did she have to come off like she was constantly hung over and angry about it?

Ammy got a good look at Ergold, who seemed to cringe beneath her hard blue gaze. “Why are you wearing a wombat pelt?”

Ergold made a noise of exasperation, but didn’t dare say what he wanted to say to her - he was smart enough to know that it would cost him. Bob, for his part, just snickered.

Logan went to get himself a beer behind the bar, wondering where Helga was, when something odd occurred. First of all, the jukebox interrupted itself; it had been playing The Black Keys, but it seemed to pause, and then Porcupine Tree’s “The Creator Has A Master Tape” started playing. At the very same moment, Bob let out a startled yelp and staggered back, bringing a hand up to his face, as Ergold grabbed his head and made a short, weird clicking noise. Pain?

Logan was going to ask, but Ammy did it first. “Grand, what is it?” She sounded genuinely concerned, not pissed for once. And hey, did she almost call him grandpa?

“Massive dimensional tear,” Bob said, still wincing a bit. “Not far from here either. Bloody hell, it’s a bad one.”

“Really violent,” Ergold added, gasping a little. Whereas Bob had been surprised but only a bit rattled, Ergold had felt this dimensional rift like someone had made it in him. He was bent over the bar, his head resting on the map. His toupee had slipped off, but he didn‘t seem to notice. “Who the fuck has that kind of power?”

But they already knew, even if Ergold was still in the dark.

Even over the music, Logan thought he heard something odd outside, beyond the walls of the bar. He opened the door and glanced out, barely aware of the slightly shimmery, distorting field of the glamour surrounding the Way Station. The streets looked amazingly empty, but he heard, maybe one or two blocks over, screams, the violent metal and glass sound of cars colliding with each other, and a deep thud or two whose noise he couldn’t really identify, but damn if it didn’t sound bad.

He wasn’t sure what made him look up, but he did. And the lightly sepia tone, smogtastic L.A. sky was turning dark. Blackness was diffusing through it like ink in water, tendrils spreading out across the clouds, blocking out the sun. It wasn’t the night sky either - it was pitch black, and it was something. Logan was smelling something like boiling tar and singed hair, and wasn’t sure if it was coming from down the street or up above as the blackness spread out overhead, blotting out the sky. He still wasn’t sure if it was an object or an actual living thing. If it was a living being, it was so massive his head couldn’t quite wrap around it.

He felt Bob and Ammy both crowd in behind him and looked up at the new black stain that was turning the street - the entire city? - into a shadowy abyss.

“Holy shit,” Bob exclaimed. That didn’t inspire confidence.

“We are totally fucked,” Ammy said.

Yeah, that sounded about right. Goddamn, when was he going to stop getting himself in these no win scenarios?

In retrospect, staying at the school didn’t seem so bad.