…Partygoer found dead in bar. Police warn of more demon attacks… (Regular headline)
CHAPTER ONE ~ Man’s best friend
The girl could definitely move.
Sully watched the twitching and swaying of her hips, and rhythmic bopping of her head with his one good eye, knowing that aesthetic appreciation wasn’t a great substitute for the other sort. But it was the most he had left, since.
She was whip-thin, although muscles moved under her cocoa-dusted skin like mating eels as she danced, her sultry brown eyes burning with yellow sparks whenever they met a man’s gaze. Her hair a mixture of braids and dreads, tied back, showcasing that Cleopatra face and mesmerising expression. Half-hypnotic, half-narcotic. She wore faded cargo shorts, a spaghetti-strap vest, and a PLO scarf - nothing else. Not even shoes on those dancing feet. Some odd-shaped beads on knotted leather thongs passed as bracelets.
That was all.
She didn’t so much occupy as prowl the dance floor. Other girls posed or jiggled on the spot around their purses, while the naked pros wrapped themselves around the pole and other fixtures, like strangler fig vines.
The thinking part of Sully’s conscious brain was wondering how you approached a girl like that and made her join you for a drink. The remainder of his brain was wondering why he was so interested in a girl who wasn’t dead yet.
Jess caught the big soldier looking, but it didn’t distract her. Men often looked, whether they had one eye or two. Sometimes they even used their hands, as if they weren’t sure that she was real.
He was fit, definitely. Would be good to wrestle - she called it ‘wrassle’ - even that one non-functioning, pearl-white eye just added to his charisma. The other was green like true jade, not marred by the scarring on the damaged side of his face, and he still had his military jar-head cropped haircut. Still wore his Army sweater and combat fatigues, taut in all the right places. Looked like he was the sort who enjoyed a long run every day at dawn, through the woods, or along a deserted beach. Made her feel all warm just thinking about it.
She did another circuit of the dance floor, all the better to view him from another angle. As she twirled idly, pretending not to note, he slowly got to his feet, and limped to the bar.
Oooh, Jess thought, and moved to follow. Time for walkies…
“Same again?” the bartender asked, mixing up a Brain Haemorrhage at Sully’s silent nod. “And for you, Jess? Another Hair of the Dog?”
“What’s the best you’ve got?” Jess mused, sliding her elbow up to meet Sully’s, where it rested on the bar. “I’d like to try a Zombie. I hear they’re a good pick-me-up.”
A third joined them silently at the bar, on Sully’s right. One or two customers edged away uncomfortably, suddenly deciding they’d had enough to drink already.
“Let me guess,” the bartender greeted the newcomer. “Screaming Orgasm? Or a Kamikaze?”
Jess looked across to see who the established competition was. A Bardot swathe of blonde hair was flicked aside as the newcomer exchanged glances.
One eye flame orange, the other electric blue flickered in a face otherwise obscured by their light, hidden in pitch darkness. The bartender seemed unmoved by the appearance of any of his customers, and carried on mixing cocktails with a professional detachment.
“It’s a Courier,” Sully said unexpectedly, breaking the wall of silence that usually surrounded him in public. “And I wouldn’t stare at it, if I were you.”
“What’s a Courier?” Jess whispered. “It’s pretty. Those eyes - so sparkly…”
“You wouldn’t say that if you knew where those eyes could lead you,” Sully remarked. “You might be all right. I think this one is faulty. It just follows me around sometimes.”
“Is it a demon?” asked Jess. “I’ve never seen one close up. How can it be faulty?”
“They normally have matching eyes,” Sully shrugged. “Those are the ones you don’t want coming after you.”
“That’s so cool. I didn’t know you could get tame demons.” Jess grinned. “What have you named your little pet?”
“It’s not a demon.”
“But you must have given it a name. Or even just a nickname.” Jess considered the shadowy figure. “I’d have called it - Sparky.”
Sully accepted his drink.
“Hellbait,” he replied at last. “Its name is Hellbait.”
Hellbait, repeated the Courier. Followed by what Jess was sure was a distant snigger.
“Can it do tricks?” Jess queried, feeling her own competitive streak rising, in response to the obvious connection apparent now between the soldier and the newcomer.
The good half of Sully’s mouth smirked, and he looked directly at Jess for the first time since she had followed him to the bar.
“I guess it plays Fetch,” he replied, slyly. “Do you?”
Jess suddenly felt all weak around the knees. God, she wanted to play with him so badly.
I fetch, said Hellbait.
“I’m Jess.” Jess offered her slender hand, and when Sully failed to respond, she picked up his own free hand from the bar and shook it. He didn’t resist.
“Good name,” he conceded. “If I called it out loud enough, would you come?”
Jess considered, edging her bottom carefully onto a bar-stool, before her legs gave way. Men weren’t usually so tolerant. Usually she just got told to get lost - or worse.
“Probably,” she admitted, and then attempted a flirtatious retort. “But I’m not promising anything.”
I’m not anything, Hellbait echoed.
“You’re just broken, Baby,” Sully muttered to the apparition. “Like the rest of us.”
Broken the rest.
“Is that an echo in here?” asked Jess. She wasn’t keen to lose monopoly of the soldier’s attention yet. “Does it know what it’s saying, or is it just repeating things parrot-fashion?”
“I reckon, both.” Sully pushed his empty glass over for a refill.
Broke.
“Not broke yet.” He flipped open his wallet. “I’m good for a few more rounds, if you two can keep up.”
“You didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who keeps drinking company,” Jess observed, trying to make herself more comfortable on the slippery seat, tucking one of her bare feet beneath her. “More of a loner. The strong silent type.”
“Well ‘keeps’ is probably too strong a word,” Sully admitted. “But as you both demonstrated, company finds me, more often than not.”
Jess was unimpressed, and disappointed by his apparent arrogance. A man who was fickle with company didn’t fit her own fantasy. She was a one-on-one type. Long walks on the beach. Not running with a pack. You were always distracted by the competition, who was getting the most attention, fighting for the least bit of affection, or for treats.
Maybe he wasn’t so special.
“I know your creed,” she sighed. “You’re all attitude at first, and when it comes down to it, you’re all talk and no action. Meaning girls just get suckered in by you. Or they have to have something else wrong with them. Like her.”
Hellbait sniggered again. Jess slid off the bar-stool.
“Think I’ll go dance some more instead.”
Sully let her walk away, without looking up. Hellbait drained a Kamikaze.
Play fetch.
“She doesn’t know what she is yet,” Sully replied.
Yet.
Sully glanced at his personal ‘demon’. The Courier was currently passing as a human, except for the face in perpetual darkness. The blonde head tilted at a knowing angle. It was wearing repossessed clothes. Sully could imagine that there were going to be some very irate naked strippers around later on.
He reached out to try and brush his fingers against the bare midriff, but the Courier flinched away. He chuckled.
“Scared that I’m anthropomorphising you against your will?” He smiled. The expression almost reached both sides of his face. “All right. You win this time.”
Looking around, he located Jess on the dance floor.
Who immediately pretended that she hadn’t been watching.
Sully stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled.
Like a shot, Jess was standing next to them at the bar again.
“Sit,” ordered Sully, pointing back at the bar-stool.
Jess found herself obeying at once. A little butterfly of anticipation fluttered in her stomach.
He put another Zombie on the bar in front of her.
“Good girl,” he said.
Hellbait lost interest, and went to look at a fat man passed out in the corner. Sully shook his head wryly. Another one for the collection.
“You don’t know where he’s been,” Sully warned.
CHOOSE.
“…And he probably can’t hear you.”
Jess enjoyed the second Zombie more than the first. It had the taste of reward attached. But Sully was keeping his good eye on the Courier, who kicked the fat man’s leg with one dainty foot. The man’s unconscious head lolled to the side, lips parting.
A dribble of vomit emerged. His eyes, fixed open, stared at nothing.
“Drink up,” said Sully. He scraped the last of his change off the bar. “Time to go, girls.”
“What’s the hurry?” Jess asked. “I only just sat back down.”
Sully shot her a look. He was going to have to get the hang of this, even if she herself hadn’t so far.
“Walkies,” he said abruptly, and she was off the seat in an instant.
“What is it? Where are we going?” she demanded, dropping her empty glass onto the bar and bobbing expectantly on her toes.
“Anywhere away from that guy in the corner,” said Sully. “I think he’s expecting company that we don’t want to run into.”
Broken.
“Yes, Baby.” Sully collared the Courier by her skimpy shirt and dragged her along with them, as they headed out. “Too broken to make a choice.”
They passed a huge black doorman in the lobby, silhouetted against an illuminated poster screen.
PLAY FETCH, Hellbait said, pointing back at the bar, dragged unwillingly outside.
The doorman’s face darkened further.
Both of his eyes flared orange fire.
He turned and strode into the bowels of the club.