smelled familiar as he approached it, letting the currents of chilled wind carry him gently to his cliff. He wasn’t sure how the stupid little town always felt the same, like shrugging on an old worn t-shirt, but it did.
The mound of now dead foliage that hid his motorcycle and the rest of his belongings didn’t seem to have been disturbed. He wasn’t surprised. Nobody probably ever visited the cliff except for him. Everyone in the little town content to keep their eyes on the ground, not moved to see things from a different view. But that worked out just as well for him. Hell, he probably didn’t have to slink around the edge of town when he needed to fly, he could probably just fly straight over and no one would even look up from what they were doing.
He let his wings flex one time before folding them in on themselves and willing them to disappear. Of course they didn’t really disappear. Just as the town of Angel Falls didn’t disappear, they just went to an in between space. It wasn’t an angel plane and it wasn’t the human plane, it was a place somewhere in between where things could exist outside of the human eye. There had been times when he’d walked that plane for weeks. Near, but not seen. Surrounded, but alone. The loneliness always pulled him back. It was one thing to be a loner, it was something else entirely when the gas station attendant couldn’t even nod a hello, when no one even noticed that you existed.
That was too much even for Demon.
He pulled a fresh black tee-shirt out of his saddlebag and shrugged on his cut. He guessed he was back.
***
The lights of the town rushed past him as he headed toward the little whorehouse his father had so eloquently named the Pawn & Poon. He’d already been to the clubhouse and gotten an earful from everyone there, including Donny-O who had been blowing up his phone, but they hadn’t seen Red since the day before when he’d gone off with Hawthorne.
He’d had a lot of bad thoughts about his brother, but he’d never imagined him agreeing to a mass killing of the residents of Three Rivers. Maybe a few of them, like himself for example, but never the wholesale slaughter of everyone.
Well, everyone except for the base model humans, and he wasn’t sure how many base models were left. Almost everyone he knew from town had a few added features.
And these were people that Red, and himself to a certain extent, had grown up with. People that shared history with him. They might not be shifters, but even Demon could see that they were part of Three Rivers, they were family.
The parking lot to the little whorehouse was practically empty, not surprising given the quality of women he’d seen employed there. There wasn’t one that he’d fuck with someone else’s dick… well ok, maybe one. Or two. Hell if it was somebody else’s dick maybe he’d fuck all of them, but he’d seriously be ashamed of himself afterward.
Demon opened the bright pink lettered front door, a shrill electric chime announced his entrance. No one sat at the glass cased counter that held an assortment of weed smoking apparatus, pawned rings, and guns, as well as the cash register. He looked down the rows of different sized, shaped, and colored dildos and vibrators, and didn’t find anyone. He looked over through the hanging straps of the bondage section, contemplating the viability of a particularly complex looking set of straps, and still found no one. He passed the row of scented massage oils, lubes, and condoms in every color and pattern, including camo, which to his mind would just be cruel to the deer, and stuck his head into the hallway that led to the back rooms where the girls worked.
Pushing a red curtain away, he called, “Hello, is anyone here?” He had never been into the back rooms of the much vaunted Pawn & Poon, and he had hoped to keep it that way, but it didn’t look like fate was going to be kind to him.
“Is anyone here, a manager, an employee, a whore, a John, anybody?” he called as he gave up and walked down the hall. No one replied.
When Red got finished dealing with psychopathic serial killers and trying to wipe out a large portion of the population he was going to have to seriously consider firing the manager of this fine establishment.
He walked slowly, knocking on locked doors and gingerly pushing the doors open that weren’t. The last thing he wanted to see was the naked body of anyone who had been reduced in life enough to frequented the Pawn & Poon, or worse, see them in the act of getting their money’s worth. That would seriously put the icing on an already annoying day.
“Hello,” he called again, turning down a hall and walking through another curtain. The décor went from faux luxuriousness of red and gold to the plain beige of every office building everywhere.
He heard the scuffle of a chair shifting against the floor. Before a head full of bright bottled red hair popped through a door.
“Hey,” the woman said as she saw Demon walking down, “Who let you in back here?” she asked.
“Well, there was no one up front to stop me or let me do anything,” Demon said shrugging.
The woman rolled her eyes, “I tell you, everyone around here is useless.” She eyed his jacket before asking, “Are you here to spend some time with a girl tonight or are you here on… other business.”
“I was trying to find Red,” he answered
The woman shook her head, “You don’t want to find Red honey, he’s done lost his mind.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Instead of answering, the woman turned and walked back into the room she’d been in. Demon took that as an invitation and followed.
The room was stark and utilitarian, obviously a shared kitchen as there were almost no personal items sitting around, just a few used plates that hadn’t been rinsed off sitting by a sink.
A round mass produced light oak table took up most of the room and that was where the woman sat, a bowl of instant noodles and a magazine sitting in front of her.
“I mean, he’s lost it. This past week alone he’s tried to choke me out for no reason whatsoever,” she lifted her head higher and motioned to some faint bruises around her neck. He hadn’t noticed them before because she’d tried her best to cover them up with makeup, but when she pointed them out he could clearly see the handprint of where she’d been held. “And then he decided this was the week he was going to, uh how should I say it, start taking advantage of some of the girls services… and while most of them wouldn’t have minded giving him whatever he wanted, he felt like taking it a little rougher than they had liked it.” She stuck her fork in the plastic bowl and twirled it. “Did you notice it was a little empty around here on your way in?”
“Yeah, just a little,” Demon replied.
“Yeah, well, there’s a reason. We might be whores, but even whores don’t want to get raped and up until now this has been a good place to work. We get paid on time, we get a fair share for our work, and we didn’t have to worry about some asshole coming in and working us over. But now…” she half shrugged and let the words trail off.
“Well, what are you still doing here?” he asked
She looked into her bowl, “Not all of us have somewhere else to go I guess.”
Demon sympathized with the woman, despite the knowledge that she probably kept herself in her situation in some way, he still felt bad for her. He realized she hadn’t told him her name.
“What’s your name, honey?” he asked the slightly past her prime prostitute.
“Chastity,” she replied.
“Hmm, Chastity, do you have any idea where Red is right this moment?”
“Nope, and I don’t care either, as long as he ain’t here, I’m happy.”
He nodded, “I’m going to leave my phone number, and if you see him or hear anything about him then give me a call. My name is Demon.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of you, you’re Red’s brother right?”
Demon considered the question, up until lately he wouldn’t have thought twice about answering, but lately he’d started feeling a little more reluctant to claim the little shit. Which was ironic, Demon was supposed to be the black sheep, fuck up in the family. Red had to pull his shit together, he was stealing Demon’s thunder.
“We have the same father, if that counts for anything,” he said before leaving the same way he’d come in.
***
Outside the night felt good, like it was washing the Pawn & Poon off his skin. It was actually an unseasonably warm night and he suddenly yearned to be back in the sky, moving through the warm currents.
Maybe the week among his ‘own kind’ hadn’t been the best idea. He’d gotten too used to not hiding who he was all the time. And except for the close call with ritual killing, it hadn’t been all bad.
Demon drove down the road towards the old farmhouse where he knew he could find Sidney and her witchy friends. He didn’t try to hide the sound of his motorcycle or mask his approach in any way. There was no reason to, he needed to talk to all of them and he didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot when he did. And if they already knew that the President of the MC that represented the majority of shifters in town was planning to work against them, he didn’t want to spook them by sneaking up on them. Or worse, getting caught sneaking up on them before he’d had a chance to pounce.
The old dirt road leading up to the farmhouse kicked up a cloud of dust behind him as he rounded the last corner before the house. It was just as picturesque as always, at any moment he could almost see Auntie Em come onto the porch and calling Dorothy and the boys in to have some fresh baked pie.
But he knew who lived here, and Bree was no Auntie Em, and from what he’d heard outside of Sidney’s house when she and Red had been together, she wasn’t a good candidate for Dorothy either.
He parked his bike right out front and walked up the steps and knocked, hoping it’d be someone other than Bree that answered the door. He could always feel the waves of hatred coming off of her.
He waited but no one answered. Closing his eyes he stretched his senses and picked up the sounds inside.
There was a lot of shuffling, more then you’d expect for the few people living there. A lot of feet moving, tapping, hands twirling. He couldn’t be sure what he was actually hearing, it was a lot of movement for the amount of people who should have been there. He wanted to count the heartbeats in the house and see what he was dealing with but voices cut in.
“The last thing we need is a shifter coming in and trying to tell us how to do things,” a man’s voice said.
“I called him,” that was Sidney, “We need him. Not only does he know how to fight but he knows his brother.” Demon couldn’t be so sure about that these days. Red, while always a bit of a dick, seemed to be abandoning all of his redeeming qualities and just concentrating on the shitty ones.
“That’s true, and also, he’s hot,” said another female voice, Demon smirked, appreciating the sentiment. He’d have to figure out which witch to thank.
“He is hot,” the male voice agreed, Demon lost his smirk, “but we still don’t need him. You never know with shifters where you stand. He may decide that he agrees with his brother,” the voice paused for a moment, “And he’s listening to every word we say so somebody might as well go let him in.”
Demon’s eyes popped open. A mind reader, he’d forgotten about him. Mind readers were very inconvenient, especially considering the secrets he hoped to keep. He took a second to try to shutter his thoughts. It wasn’t something he had practiced, so hopefully the mind reader wouldn’t be that interested in him.
He heard footfalls a moment later, then the turn of the knob, before a perturbed looking old woman glaring up at him opened the door. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to earn that glare besides exiting, but it sure did annoy him.
“Hello ma’am have you got time to change your life today? I’m here to tell you about a business opportunity with Amway that will make your wildest dreams come true.”
The old woman’s eyes grew even more distrustful, if that were possible. “I guess you imagine you’re funny,” Bree said, her glare holding steady, “but I can assure you that no one here is amused, no one has time to be amused.”
“Ok, well do you have time to invite me in, or would it be more expedient to send Sidney out?”
The woman’s glare seemed to redouble in intensity, but she stood to the side and let him in.
He paused, waiting to let her lead him into the dining room.
There were a lot of people there. At least 30. The room they were in was large, but they still seemed packed in like sardines. Standing against the walls, sitting six to a three person couch, sharing chairs around the table, some even decided to plop down on the floor wherever they could find a spot.
And they weren’t all witches, he’d seen the faces around town but he didn’t know all of them, but he nodded to the few that he did.
It seemed like every group was represented there though. There were some Fae, a couple of The Old Folk, the father from the Vasily family was even there. Seems like they’d called a town meeting, but excluded the shifters. And humans of course, but who ever told the humans anything anyway.
They all stared at him, some with hatred, some trying to size him up, and a couple with outright hunger. Demon nodded at Sidney’s sister as she gave him the eye.
Sidney herself was sitting at the edge of the table, looking like she didn’t care whether or not he was there. Which was annoying considering she had called him. Annoyed or not, his eyes drank her in. She looked good, better than he remembered. Everything about her seemed brighter. Her skin seemed to glow and her hair seemed to almost shift like a flame in the light. And her eyes flashed like lightening as they snapped at him and back again. He felt a flare of desire, but quelled it before it could catch flame, he wasn’t here for that.
“So,” he began, “What’s up?” He addressed the question to the general assembly and they all began to answer at once.
Until Bree shushed them, of course, “You know ‘what’s up’ as you so glibly put it. Your brother has agreed to work with Frederick Hawthorne to exterminate the rest of us.”
“No, I don’t know what’s going on, nobody from the Dogs is at the clubhouse or answering their phones, and neither is Red for that matter, and you guys are the first I’ve talked to about any of this. And by the rest of us, who does that mean exactly?”
“From what we understand it means anyone who isn’t shifter or whatever Hawthorne is, I guess.”
“You guess? Isn’t this something you want to be sure about?”
“We can only go on what we’ve heard from other shifters,” Cord said, “Mr. Turner came by yesterday morning and tried to give us a heads up, but he also confirmed that there wasn’t anything he could do about it.”
“Yes, much like your animal kindred, you … people” Bree said the word like they were anything but, “have to go along with your top dog, isn’t that correct?”
It was correct, for the most part. They were compelled, by their religion and by their nature, to follow orders, to follow the Alpha in whatever decisions he made. But they’d evolved past that. They voted on their important decisions and talked about the issues, with arguments for and against before there was even a vote. They weren’t a dictatorship where the leader’s rule was law, the Alpha didn’t go around staring down men and making them conform to his will.
Or that’s not how they used to do things. Maybe more had changed in the week he’d been gone than he knew.
“I guess it is,” he conceded, “for members of the pack, but I’ve always been more of a stray myself.”
Demon leaned against the edge of an overflowing couch and made himself comfortable. After what he’d seen at the lab if there was going to be a fight with Frederick Hawthorne then he was on whatever side that fought against him, regardless of whether he had to fight Red in the process. On second thought, maybe especially because he got to fight Red.