Chapter 4

 

 

LOUISE RUBBED her head against his arm, carefully not nudging the paintbrush. She sat beside him on the bench, wrapped in his coat. Mal held a sketchbook opened flat on his lap while he filled in watercolors around the ink sketch he’d made the day before. He’d gotten so bored watching the building Jory worked in that he’d taken to drawing the damn thing and the mountains and the park behind it, just for something to do.

He let a few of his trees dry and dabbed his paintbrush on the napkin holding his cookies. The cookies that were a better cure for the brain fog than coffee. He’d bought another dozen, a mixture of two different flavors this time. He walked to the park two blocks over, wanting a change in scenery, if nothing else.

We might lose him, Louise insisted.

“He doesn’t leave the building unless the girl he works with forces him to. Who the hell doesn’t go to a grocery store once in a while? He works and lives there—he thinks he’s safe there,” Mal insisted. “And he’s right. Whatever wards are on that place, I can’t even think straight when I’m inside. I want to get this done, and I’ve got to email Eugene before I get close to the building again.”

Not that he could provide any new information. Lists of hotel charges, gas, and restaurant costs had been the bulk of his reports to Eugene so far. He hadn’t mentioned following on the heels of Luhmann’s own private detective, but he knew that results were the only thing Eugene cared about anyway. The day he’d first discovered Jory working in the café, he’d been too groggy to do more than let Eugene know that he was sure that he’d narrowed it down to the city, but he hadn’t gotten any more specific. The last thing he wanted was for Eugene’s brat to show up to micromanage how Mal did his job when Mal himself didn’t even know what he was dealing with.

It had taken days to clarify what he was sensing behind the miasma. When he’d gotten used to it and his senses had become used to the stink of incubus, he’d noticed another demon. And then almost a dozen more, albeit much fainter. Multiple generations, each with more diluted demonic blood than their parents, were in the area.

He took another bite of cookie, captivated by the hint of Jory’s scent that remained. Mal’s dick had finally accepted that Jory was too far away to bend over the nearest flat surface, but his smell was still intoxicating. Even if the innocent, befuddled act was a con and Jory had decided to try to kill him, Mal still wanted him enough to accept the risk.

The painting’s done. If you add anything else, it’ll look overworked.

“Yeah, I know. Whatever this is”—he twirled his finger in the air, at a loss to even describe the muggy feeling trapping his thoughts—“it’s making it impossible to pinpoint any individual demon. Whatever happened at that church, it made Smith retreat to the closest safe haven he could find. And I’m beginning to think the energy hanging over the city is all meant to hide him. He actually panicked when I touched him, and that’s just wrong.”

Mal hadn’t been able to sense much, but when he’d set his hand on Jory’s shoulder, he’d noticed how weak he was. Not just the fatigue that would come from his energy and spirit being depleted, but a frailty that spoke of long-term deprivation.

And the way Jory panicked made it all seem worse. As far as Mal knew, initiating physical contact with an incubus was the equivalent of rolling over and baring your throat. But Jory had recoiled as if the contact terrified him. And even though he felt like he was trying to see and smell the world through a cinnamon-flavored syrup, Mal had almost instantly noticed the astringent tang of fear that radiated from him. People could fake an expression, body language, and words, but controlling the smell of adrenaline wasn’t possible, even for a demon-spawn.

“Do you remember that guy in upstate New York? The one in the cabin with all of the dogs who skipped town before he could be tried for killing his girlfriend?” He scrunched up a bit of the napkin, licked it, and then blotted out a few wisps of cloud that he’d painted too gray. “Smith feels like one of those dogs.”

Louise stiffened against him and growled.

The dogs had been vicious and neurotic, driven insane by abuse and starvation. Their master had been so focused on forcing their obedience that he beat them every time they went to their food bowls to eat. Mal could command them, he could hold them still, but to keep them from panicking every time they were fed, he’d have had to keep a constant hold on their minds. Mal had dragged the fucker back to jail, but fixing the damage done to those animals was beyond his powers. Animal control had taken custody of them, and most remained so frightened that they willingly starved themselves rather than risk additional pain.

Knowing him well, Louise shoved her head into his lap, smudging the painting, to force him to pet her. He gratefully sank his fingers into the warmth of her scruff.

“I want to tell Eugene to go fuck himself,” he admitted. “I should have emailed him again yesterday.”

Louise sighed but kept her thoughts to herself.

Mal leaned back on his bench and closed his eyes, trying to ignore the real problem. He wanted Jory Smith so badly that he was being stupid. Eugene was the only one who could give Mal a new set of papers that would be ironclad, matching up in every database they were supposed to be in. He needed to finish this job. Whatever issues Jory had weren’t his problem.

But every time he tried to get close, his stupid fucking dick decided to betray him. His brain short-circuited and he found himself wanting to flirt with Jory, wanting to see him smile, and Mal couldn’t do a damn thing about it. If it was just physical proximity, Mal could try to find a way around it. He could let Eugene know where he could find Jory. But the four times Mal had started to type out that email, he’d stopped himself. He couldn’t reveal where Jory was hiding until he knew what the hell had happened to him.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as a gentle breeze swept over him. It carried the scent that had been clogging his senses for the past two weeks, but stronger, concentrated.

A blond man who looked like he earned a living holding up a cardboard sign begging for spare change appeared out of nowhere. He stood a few feet in front of Mal’s bench, glaring at him. This, Mal realized, was another incubus. Not a lesser demon-spawn either. From the sheer amount of power this guy radiated, Mal could only assume he was Hel-born, and one of the nobility at that.

Mal could see the edge of a sigil tattooed on his chest, but he couldn’t make out which king’s mark the incubus wore.

“This is neutral territory,” he said, refusing to give in to the urge to slip off the bench and kneel. He’d been cast out of his clan and Hel; he’d be damned if he let some lesser noble command him now. “And you’re in my light.”

“Who sent you?” the incubus demanded. “What are your intentions here?”

Mal pushed his instincts down and met the incubus’s gaze head-on. “No one from Hel sent me. And my intentions are to paint that river over there and get on with my day.”

“Who sent you after the kid, and what do you want with him?” the incubus tried again, his tone quieter but somehow more menacing.

“Oh, Jory…. Some human assholes hired me to track him down, but I think I’m done with them.”

“Humans? Those worthless bastards from Minnesota?” He seemed to shrink with relief.

Mal froze for a moment, then carefully began to put his paintbrush away. “He’s a demon; it’s not like they can hurt him. What about you, though? I know you guys don’t prey on each other, so what’s your deal? Is he one of your spawn? And what is with this fog hanging over everything?”

“Mine?” the incubus laughed. “I wish. I’m nobody. Just an exiled servant of Asmodeus. There’s no way that kid’s mine.”

Mal shivered but forced himself not to bolt, no matter how much he wanted to. The demon lord Asmodeus wasn’t technically one of the kings of Hel, he was just the demon who owned all of their debts. No matter what human bullshit said about controlling legions of demons, Asmodeus had controlled something far more important—fun, neutral territory. His place was huge, large enough to be a city, and he’d gleefully filled it with everything he loved. There was music, food, alcohol, sex, gambling on everything from cards to death matches, and strict rules about visitors leaving their political squabbles outside. Since he was so good at separating everyone else from their money, he’d hired all the muscle he needed to make sure everyone played nice. “They call him the Prince of Lust. Why would he exile an incubus? And why would an exile care about some random cambion?”

The incubus was still smiling, but his expression looked more annoyed than amused. “Asmodeus was never a prince of anything, and he’s definitely not now. I think he’s dead. I figured it was best to leave before I was disposed of too. Hel’s always in chaos, so I’d rather stay here anyway.”

And there it was. A spike of adrenaline. “You’re lying.” He smirked. “Fuck it all, I can tell when some stick-up-his-ass noble is lying. That’s cool.”

“I’m a servant of Asmodeus, of course I’m lying. I’m Neal. Who are you?”

“Mal. I was from the Pelle clan, but I left a little over a century ago.”

“Mal? Not Malpheus? The Pelle Kin Slayer?” Neal’s eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open, more like a rabid teenage fangirl than a demon lord. “I can’t believe you’re here! That you’re alive!”

“How the fuck do you know about that?”

“Are you kidding? We made a fortune off of you! For a few years there, you were our biggest standing bet!”

“Bet?”

Neal nodded eagerly. “Everyone wanted to bet about who would finally take you out.”

“I’ve been lucky a lot.”

“Thanks for that. Every time some arrogant little dick from King Paimon’s hellhound clans declared that he was going to earth to bring back your head, we took thousands of bets on their odds. Eventually everybody figured out that betting on you was as close to a sure thing as you could find in Asmodeus’s domain, so we stopped taking bets at all, but it was fun.”

Demon lord or not, Mal glared at him. “So glad me dodging assassins as a kid was amusing for somebody.”

“Speaking of kids… what do you want with this one?”

“I don’t see that it’s any of your business,” Mal insisted.

“And I don’t see why I should let you live. Let’s humor each other, hmm?”

Mal glared at Neal, trying his best to look offended. “I don’t want anything with him. I want him. It can’t be that hard for a sex demon to comprehend.”

“You’ve been lurking outside the café for two weeks because you want to sleep with him?”

He sighed, wondering how he’d missed the incubus spying on him as he spied on Jory. “He’s hot.”

“And your minion isn’t enough to satisfy you?”

Mal slammed his sketchbook down, heedless of the damp paint. “I don’t give a fuck who you are, you won’t talk about her or me like we’re animals. She’s my friend, not my damn slave! And in case it wasn’t obvious from the fact that Jory is a man, I’m gay. If your fucking incubus magic works on women, why shouldn’t his work on men? Even knowing he’ll likely suck me dry, I want him so much I don’t think I care!”

Neal’s vicious expression softened, turning into a knowing smirk. “It’s not you, then. I should have figured—I mean, you’re just a hellhound.”

He wasn’t stupid enough to attack a demon lord, no matter how much he wanted to. He’d survived taking down his brother and then a hundred years stuck on earth, taking out the occasional assassin and the too-many human fugitives who’d just as soon kill him as go back to jail. But he hadn’t done any of it by being rash or stupid.

Neal watched him for a moment as if waiting for him to strike. When it was obvious that Mal wasn’t going to attack first, Neal snorted and then stepped away, vanishing with the movement.

“We need to leave,” he said to Louise once he was sure they were alone. She gave him a look. “The last thing we need is an overprotective demon lord shadowing us.”

She cocked her head to the side and whined.

“Money’s not worth dying over. I’ll figure out some other way to get a job.”

This time she growled.

“Jory? He’s in a haven run by an incubus who calls himself Neal. That means he’s powerful enough that other demons would recognize his name if they heard it. So I’d say Eugene is going to have to learn to live with disappointment.”

She barked softly.

“What?”

Annoyed, he reached out and set his hand on her head behind her ear.

You told him you’re interested in Jory for sex. The fastest way to piss him off might be to prove that your interests aren’t as carnal as you told him.

“It’s not like I lied about that.”

She looked like she wanted to roll her eyes.

“Okay, I’ll take him to dinner, I’ll make it look good. You get our shit packed, and then we go back to New York, agreed?”

He dropped her off back at the hotel, with clothes in case she needed them, and drove around to the café. His head became a little groggy, but he was still a bundle of nervous energy, flinching at every rapid motion that triggered his peripheral vision.

After he parked, he found Jory sitting at one of the bistro tables out front, looking cold in the same sweater he’d worn at work that day. Mal allowed himself a moment to fantasize about skipping dinner and dragging Jory away with him, but his daydream fizzled when he got close enough to take in Jory’s expression and scent. The cinnamon and vanilla of the café still clung to him, and the excited scent that had driven him insane while they were in the kitchen that afternoon, now overwhelmed by the acidic smell of fear. The moment Mal was within arm’s reach, he saw the same fear in Jory’s expression, his gaze darting around quickly.

It made him wonder if Jory wasn’t such a willing guest of the blond incubus after all.

Mal shoved his hands in his pockets and stopped a few feet away. He tried to summon a reassuring smile, and even though Jory smiled back, the scent didn’t change. “Are you all right?” he asked, keeping his voice calm and level.

“I’m fine,” Jory said quickly. He kept shifting forward to the edge of the tiny metal chair like he was getting ready to bolt.

Mal took another step back. “Are you sure?”

Jory’s gaze swept the streets around them. “It’s been a while since I’ve gone out with anybody. Just nervous, that’s all.”

Mal slowly sat down opposite him. “No one is ever good at first dates,” he said, ignoring the urge to reach for Jory’s hand to see if the fear spiked. “I was serious about dinner, but if you’d like to start with coffee, I’m up for that too.”

He pulled his hands out of his pockets, hooking his keys around his index finger. Even that made Jory flinch. But just as Mal was sure he was going to run, Jory looked up at him sharply. “We could just skip dinner, if you’d rather just come back to my place? I live right upstairs.”

“Nope,” Mal said, mentally cursing. Falling further into this mess would be a very bad idea. “I want to take you out.”

Jory’s hurt expression surprised him, but Mal knew it was probably a manipulation tactic. Afraid of touch or not, an incubus knew how to be irresistible.

“I would love for tonight to end at your place,” he said, putting on the warmest smile he could dredge up. “But I’d like to get to know you first. We didn’t even really introduce ourselves, did we? I’m Malpheus Pelle.”

“Malpheus?” Jory finally smiled. “And I thought all the parents who dug out Old Testament names were weird. Not that it’s a bad name—it sounds cool.”

“It raised so many eyebrows here that I legally changed it. I can’t get used to Malcom, though, so I just go by Mal.”

“I’m Jory Smith. Some random nurse named me, so it’s not like I’ve got room to talk.”

“A nurse?”

“I’ve never had parents,” Jory said with a casual tone that Mal would have thought was fake if Jory’s scent hadn’t stayed steady. “I was abandoned as a newborn. ‘Jory’ was the name the nurse who cleaned me up at the hospital picked, and ‘Smith’ was what my family services caseworker chose when she had to get a court order to establish my name and birthday.”

“They just picked a name at random?” Mal asked, a little horrified.

“A lot of parents do pretty much the same thing, they just agonize over a baby name book for months beforehand,” Jory challenged.

“But….” Mal’s own clan name still resonated with him, even after almost a hundred years on his own. It was comforting, knowing that he shared at least that connection to his family.

“It’s not a big deal,” Jory insisted. “Hey, how old are you? I’ve been trying to guess for days, but sometimes you look like you’re my age and sometimes you look….”

“Old?” Mal suggested.

“Older.”

“I’m a hundred and fifty-six,” Mal said honestly. “But my current driver’s license says I’m thirty-nine.”

“Thirty-nine? Is it pathetic that I’m still young enough that that seems weird?”

“How old are you? I mean, how old are you really?”

“Twenty, but only for a couple more months.”

He shook his head to try to clear some of the grogginess. “Twenty?” Mal asked, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. Mal knew he was telling the truth, he could smell it, but it didn’t make sense. Luhmann had talked about raising Jory, but even then, Mal thought it was bullshit. “You’re serious? Like, you were born twenty years ago?”

“That’s what being twenty usually means, isn’t it? But if hanging out with someone younger than you freaks you out, there’s no obligation on your part.”

A twenty-year-old cambion shouldn’t even be allowed to venture out of its clan’s territory, much less out of Hel. He knew time passed faster on earth than in Hel, but that was just ridiculous.

“What?” Jory asked, grinning awkwardly.

“Twenty? And you were abandoned as a baby? Twenty years ago? In Hel?”

“Uh….” Jory looked uncomfortable. “St. Louis. It’s not heaven, but it’s not that bad.”

“You grew up in St. Louis? If I asked what you are, what would you say?” Mal asked, beginning to feel like a creep.

“I’m a pastry chef,” Jory said, his tone serious and absolute. “I get that everybody expects me to be all broody and resentful about it, but I’m not. I define who I am, not the mother who abandoned me or the father who probably has no idea I exist.”

Maybe he was a better liar than Mal had given him credit for. He had been Luhmann’s partner, after all. He was more personable and charming than the old minister, and he’d been a major part of the whole New Life con.

“I’m not freaked out about dating someone younger than me,” he said, remembering his own young adult years. At twenty, most hellhounds were happy to fuck anything that was willing. It couldn’t be that different for incubi. “I’m just surprised. You seem a lot older than twenty.” He set his keys on the table between them. “Do you want to drive? Since you’re local, you’ve got to know your way around better than my smartphone.”

“You don’t care if I drive?”

“Not at all. Assuming you’re old enough to drive….”

Jory laughed and grabbed the keys. “What kind of place should we aim for, then?”

“Whatever you want. Your pumpkin cookies are so good they’re practically orgasmic, so I’m pretty sure anything you like will be delicious.”

“What about your pug?”

“She’s back at my hotel getting hair all over one of the beds. Hopefully just one bed, anyway. I almost brought her along. Louise really likes you. I know that sounds stupid, but her opinion is usually the only one that matters to me besides my own.”

Jory’s expression turned guarded. “Louise likes me?” he asked, chuckling.

“She does.”

“I hate to say it, but it’s probably because I smell like food.”

“You totally do,” Mal said, watching Jory shiver again.

“Is she going to be okay on her own?”

Mal nodded. “As long as I bring her takeout, she doesn’t mind.”

“Takeout?”

“Yeah. If she knows she’s getting something she likes, she’s cool with just about anything. She’ll be angry if I bring her Chinese or Thai, and she’s iffy about Taco Bell, but if I grab her a burger, she’ll be thrilled.”

“You feed your pug Taco Bell?” Jory gaped at him.

He shrugged. “I try, but unless she’s really hungry, she holds out for McDonald’s.”

“That can’t be healthy.”

“I suppose we could switch to living off your cookies. Pumpkin is healthy, right?” he asked.

“Totally healthy,” Jory said, smirking.

The sun had dipped below the horizon, and it was getting cold quickly. Jory crossed his arms, shivering more. Mal pulled his jacket off and passed it to Jory. “Seems like you could use this more than me right now.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re shivering. Let me do the whole chivalrous-date thing and lend you my jacket.”

Jory smiled again, his eyes lighting up adorably, only to falter as he slipped the jacket on. “What’s this?” Jory asked, lifting his Taser out of the inside pocket.

Mal scrambled for something to say, something close enough to true that it would put Jory at ease. “It’s a reasonable alternative to a pistol.”

Jory examined it, turning it over to read the label. “It’s a stun gun?”

“Yeah. In my line of work, shooting someone is occasionally an option, but it’s messy, and it seems a bit harsh for someone who might only be looking at a couple of years in prison for theft.”

“What do you do?” Jory asked, his eyes wide and nervous.

“I’m a bond enforcement agent. I work for a couple of different bail bonds companies, tracking down people who bonded out of jail and then didn’t show up for court.”

Jory raised both eyebrows at him. “You’re a bounty hunter?”

“I really prefer ‘bond enforcement agent.’ ‘Bounty hunter’ has become a bit too reality TV for my tastes.”

“Wow. I always thought that was a job that died with the Old West. How did you get into it?”

Mal cringed.

“If it’s uncomfortable, you don’t need to tell me.”

“I don’t mind. I just didn’t expect you to ask. I grew up with a big clan, a big family. Four brothers and two sisters, plus a dozen aunts, uncles, cousins, and second cousins all close together. I was the second oldest. When I was barely an adult, my older brother hurt someone. She was my friend. He was taken into custody, but he broke out, killed her, and ran. He ended up in Oregon, where he hurt more people still. The local sheriff tried to go after him, but my brother killed two of his deputies. I… I went with the bounty hunter who set off after him, and I dragged my brother back. Afterward, I couldn’t go home again, so the bounty hunter split his 15 percent fee with me. I’ve been doing this ever since.”

Jory gaped at him. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “Have you patched things up with them since?”

Mal closed his eyes miserably. Even after all this time, he could still remember his mother’s horrified face as he handed what was left of Caleth’s body over to the members of his clan who’d chased them from Hel. “No, some things can’t be fixed. My family is all about protecting each other. When the whole universe is against you just because of what you are, you’ve got to stick together. And I didn’t. That’s not something they will ever forgive.”

“That’s….” Jory shook his head, apparently at a loss for words.

“Stupid to obsess over?” Mal supplied.

Jory leaned across the table and set his hands on Mal’s. His skin was dry and rough from working in a commercial kitchen, but the warmth that seemed to seep through his skin was softness itself. It was so subtle it took Mal a minute to recognize what Jory was doing, to realize that he felt better. The incremental shift of energy between their skin was soothing, and his own pain seemed to evaporate while Jory’s energy, vibrant and intoxicating, crept into him.

“It’s fucked-up,” Jory whispered. “I’m sorry. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that there are worse situations in life than being a foster-care reject, and that is definitely a contender.”

Mal stared at him, touched but confused. “It’s okay,” he said, slipping his hands away. “Whether it hurts or not, I wouldn’t have done anything different.”

“But it still hurts,” Jory said.

“Life hurts. It’s my pain to live with, and it reminds me that I did the right thing.”

Jory nodded slowly.

“I’m sorry,” Mal said, forcing himself to smile. “That got kind of heavy. I didn’t mean to sound so depressing. We should go get dinner.”

Mal forced himself to relax as Jory climbed behind the wheel of his Mustang. Handing over control to an incubus who was probably using him left him uncomfortable, but there was no getting around it. If he kept waiting for Jory to leave the café on his own, he’d never finish this damn job.

Jory drove them to a small diner near the highway and pocketed his keys.

“Comfort food,” Jory announced, nodding to the diner.

The sound of rushing water and the scent of pine greeted him when he got out of the car, and he was pleasantly surprised to find that the restaurant was built on a bridge that crossed a rocky creek. It was a far cry from New York, where Mal’d lost track of the number of nights when he’d retreated to Prospect Park to remind himself that the real world still existed beneath the urban façade.

“This is nice,” he said, gesturing at the creek and the forest behind the diner. “I might have to come back and draw for a while.” He snapped a quick photo so he could try to paint it later, then took a snapshot of Jory too. Even this far from the café, the fog in his head had only cleared a little, and his body was still convinced that fucking Jory was almost as important as breathing.

They got a table along the far wall, and he waited until after they ordered drinks to press for more information. “So how did you get into the baking thing?” he asked, thinking about the well-loved cookbook he’d taken from New Life Ministries. “Was it just a random job, or something you wanted to do from the start?”

“A bit of both. I didn’t leave my last job under the best of circumstances, and I was struggling for a bit when I got into town. But I’ve baked since I was twelve. I moved to a new foster home, and my foster mom, Barbara, was always in the kitchen. The first week there, I was shocked when she asked me if I had had enough to eat after dinner. She had three other kids with her at the time, and she didn’t seem to have any time to spare, so I just shrugged. She made me mac and cheese,” Jory said, grinning. “It was such a stupid, simple thing, but it… it stuck with me.”

“It’s not stupid if you’re used to being hungry.”

Jory smiled whimsically. “I was always hungry, and she taught me to bake so I would stop bugging her to make cookies. We spent an entire summer watching cooking shows, and I was always asking her to help me figure out how to make the fancy desserts they showed on TV. For my birthday, she ordered me this great big cookbook that had nothing but pastry and dessert recipes in it. I got used to people forgetting about my birthday when I was six, but she looked it up just to get me a gift. It was… nice. I just wish I’d been able to take it with me when I left.”

Mal thought about the duct-taped cookbook in his trunk and grimaced.

Jory leaned back. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said quickly. “I’m just sorry you lost it.”

“Well, I learned a lot from it. When I got here, Selma helped me out one morning, then let me bake a couple of things to show her what I could do. I didn’t appreciate quite how quickly news can spread on social media around here. People texted their friends and posted things somewhere or other, and within an hour there was a line halfway down the block. Things almost got ugly when we had to tell the people who were waiting that we were sold out.”

“I would get angry over that,” Mal said thoughtfully.

When their food arrived, Jory ate like he hadn’t seen food in days. Between the cupcakes, the cookies, and the coffee he’d gotten from the café, Mal wasn’t sure he would ever feel hungry again. “You don’t eat at work, do you?”

“Sorry,” Jory said, consciously slowing down. “I actually eat all the time, but I’m always hungry again a couple of hours later. That’s why I bake—desserts are way more filling than vegetables.”

“What did you do before?”

Jory fiddled with his water and his silverware. “Nothing good.”

“Lots of folks don’t do anything exciting.”

Jory hesitated. “Not dull, just unethical.”

“Were you a criminal?” Mal asked, keeping his tone light and teasing.

“That depends on how you define the word ‘criminal.’”

“Would you consider yourself a criminal?”

He was surprised when Jory seemed to give the question serious consideration. “I never meant to be, but food’s a good thing, and I did some less than ethical things to eat after I left my old job. And my old job definitely crossed the line a few times.”

Mal bit back the questions he was burning to ask. “I doubt you could have done anything too bad.”

“It’s all about perspective. If I had stolen twenty bucks from someone’s wallet, people would have called me a thief. And the few times I’ve had to resort to colorful ways to get a bite to eat, that would have gotten me arrested if I’d been caught. But conning an entire church out of hundreds of thousands of dollars made me a pillar of the community.”

Mal took in his grim expression and realized he’d have to tread carefully. If he said the wrong thing, he’d freak Jory out or give himself away completely. “How’d you manage that?”

“Just plain old evangelical Christianity. Religion is the easiest and most profitable game ever. But I baked then too,” Jory explained. “I volunteered to bake all the snacks for services. It worked out, since I was in charge of procuring chicken and… things.”

“Things?”

“Actors. Chicken bits and actors. My old boss Adam is a faith healer. I did a lot of the shit work for his shows, scrounging up random people from out of town to provide testimonials or be miraculously healed during a service. And I stocked up on chicken livers.”

“Chicken livers?”

“A squishy, bloody metaphor for demonic possession.”

“Demonic possession?” He wasn’t sure how Jory could say that and keep a straight face.

“Adam had this psychic surgery shtick. He’d always do it with parishioners who were suffering from things with vague symptoms. Depression, anxiety, fatigue, or hell, even puberty. He’d rant about demons and how they infested people and took root inside them, making a physical mass like a tumor that caused their symptoms.”

“Symptoms of… puberty? I didn’t realize that was a disorder.”

Jory shrugged. “He’d preach for a few minutes, palm a raw chicken liver, then pretend to shove his hands into a kid’s stomach and pull it out.”

Mal froze, thinking about the greasy Reverend Luhmann looming over a frightened child. “You said ‘kid.’ He does that shit to children?”

“Mostly to children. They’re not sure what to expect, so they’re not likely to point out that Adam didn’t actually shove his hand into their intestines.”

“Don’t they get scared?”

Jory nodded slowly. “Terrified.”

“Did you ever report him?”

“Report him to who?” Jory asked bitterly. “Their parents were convinced he was saving their souls, and he never left a mark on them. Faith healing is only a crime if someone dies, and then it’s the parents who are charged with neglect.”

“Fraud is a crime,” Mal insisted.

“He’s a fraud. But so was I, and I didn’t like the idea of getting busted with him. No one would have believed me anyway. Adam can twist any situation to his favor. He’s convinced his parishioners he has God on some kind of psychic speed dial, and no matter how outrageous it got, they lapped it up.”

“Why are you telling me, then?”

“I don’t know.” Jory shrugged and fixed his gaze on the table. “Because I’m out of it now, and I figure that has to count for something. Plus, you did say you could tell when I lie.”

“Were you and your boss together?” he asked, suddenly nauseated as he imagined Jory with Reverend Luhmann.

Jory laughed. “Me and Adam? No. I’m pretty sure he’s straight. I walked in on him with one or another of the ladies from the church more than I care to remember.”

Mal leaned back, trying to decide if he should keep pressing for information or back off a little. Jory was surprisingly open, but if he kept digging, it’d be weird. “I suppose it’s a good thing we met now. I haven’t met too many evangelical Christian boys who want to hook up. They’re all too terrified of divine retribution.”

“Trust me, they’re only worried about everyone else in the church and all the ways they’ll have to put up with people trying to save them. Gay and bi people are part of every church, but some of them have to be discreet.”

“Are you worried? Because I don’t think I can manage subtle to save my life,” Mal admitted.

Jory turned away, apparently trying not to laugh. The smell of fear had faded now, although it could be Mal’s own jacket covering up the scent. It let him relax and appreciate having the chance to stare at Jory, at least. “I’m learning to relax about being out.”

“Okay, I’ve got to know,” Mal said. “When you’ve done something colorful to get by, what did that involve?”

“Broken iPads getting more broken. Most people have stopped carrying cash, but when someone hits a pedestrian in a crosswalk, they’re so damn grateful that the poor pedestrian doesn’t want to sue them, even though he’s obviously hurt, that they’ll gladly go get a couple hundred bucks out of an ATM to pay for the iPad that got smashed by the impact.”

“That’s….”

“Shitty? Yeah, I know.”

Mal smirked. “I was going to say ‘brilliant,’ but, yeah, also kind of shitty.”

“I only did it a couple times before I ended up here. The fact that I really was too weak to stand up helped sell it. But even flat-out stealing would have been better than working for Adam.”

“Why were you too weak to stand up?”

Jory paused and leaned away a little. “I got sick. Really sick.”

“How could you get sick?” he asked, confused. An incubus might not have the same well of power that some demons had, but they could always replenish their own strength by siphoning energy from humans. Since demon blood tended to make people immune to ordinary human diseases, illness was never a problem.

“A combination of asthma and pneumonia trashed my lungs.”

Mal wasn’t going to call him out on that lie. He’d been telling the truth about being weakened, and if he didn’t want to share what happened, he wouldn’t push.

“It sucked, and I’m still not totally over it. But I’ve got a job and a dry place to sleep, so it’ll go away eventually.”

“At least it’s a job you like,” Mal said, changing the subject. “I honestly don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t stumbled into my line of work. And I’m not sure what I’ll do when it’s not viable anymore.”

“Why wouldn’t it be? People are always going to commit crimes, and they’re always going to make stupid decisions after someone bails them out.”

“I wish it were that simple,” Mal said quietly. “Times change. I feel ancient every time I complain about how everything is computerized now, but it makes life here feel impossible sometimes. I think it’d be easier to take off into the woods and never look back.”

“You’re in the right place if that’s what you’re planning,” Jory said, grinning. “That’s what this town’s got. Hipster college students and conspiracy theory nuts who’re convinced that living off the grid is the only way they’ll survive Armageddon. And people who’ve slipped through the cracks,” he added, gesturing to himself.

Mal shivered as an unfamiliar sensation seemed to wrap around his spine, making him freeze. He took a deep breath, trusting his nose over his eyes, but he couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary. No incubus lord, at least.

“Do you feel that? Is that you?” he asked hopefully.

Jory raised his eyebrows, giving him a look that clearly said he thought Mal was insane. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong?”

“Don’t you feel it?” Mal struggled to keep his voice down.

Instead of waiting for an answer, he grabbed the check and went to the counter, trying to watch everything around him at once. The waitress working the cash register started to ask if everything was all right, then stopped cold, staring back at their table.

The scent of her fear was muted, overshadowed completely by the acidic scent of Jory’s terror.

Mal turned toward the window, a chill running through his entire body as a man who looked pale and blue enough to actually be dead, walked toward the diner—not to the front door but to the window beside their booth. His eyes were glazed, and his gaze was fixed on Jory. His clothes might have been a suit once, but now it hung off of him like rags, and his hands and mouth were marred with scratches and dried blood.

Jory was no longer sitting in the booth but was behind Mal, his gaze glued to the window. “Ma’am, that gentleman seems like he might have a problem. You might want to call the police,” Jory said, somehow sounding charming despite the circumstances.

The waitress nodded and slowly backed away from the counter.

The rest of the customers noticed the man outside the window and began to scramble away.

“Let’s go,” Mal said, tugging Jory out of the diner. As soon as they were through the door, the taste of copper flooded his mouth, sinking into the back of his throat and making him gag. “Unlock the car.”

Jory fumbled with the key fob while keeping his gaze fixed on the corner of the building where the man had been.

The man had come around the corner, his gaze riveted on them as they crossed the parking lot.

“Jory, get in the car.”

As if waking from a trance, Jory shook his head rapidly and climbed in. “Do you know that guy?” he asked, pulling away as soon as Mal shut his door.

Mal turned back. The man’s face was twisted in fury. “I’ve never seen him before,” he said, trying to swallow the taste of copper. “You?”

“No, but that’s what I was talking about. This town has a lot of weird people,” Jory said, risking a glance back as they stopped at a traffic light.

“I like to think I’m an authority on the weird and unusual, but I’m not quite sure what that was. Sorry we didn’t get dessert, though.”

Jory glanced sideways at him. “If you want, there’s a place downtown that makes the best ice cream I’ve ever had.”

“I’ve had so many cookies over the last week that I think I’m actually losing my sweet tooth,” Mal warned.

“Not possible,” Jory insisted. “You just need a different flavor.”

“If you say it’s good, I’m game.”