Like most demons, I could feed on any emotion. For the dump truck loads of shit I had to absorb, I got to taste only a few drops of ease. But I would do anything to create those precious drops. So rather than an altruist, as too many called me, I was a hypocrite at heart, seeing only the comfort they found with me and not what I took. It was selfish in the extreme. And I could never forget it.
That was what made me a demon.
All the while, I avoided Savor. He was the only demon, other than Shock, allowed in my bar. I was Vex’s bagman, and Savor was his messenger; Savor’s job was to drop off the discreet envelopes of payola that I passed on to local, state, and sometimes even federal officials. The enormous Prophet’s Arena would never have been built in Brooklyn right on the East River if the church hadn’t paid off the commissioner of the planning and zoning board. His driver still picked up an envelope on the first of every month.
Vex’s empire was his religion, the Fellowship of Truth. He’d started it right after World War II, posing as the first and now-dead prophet of a philosophy that was more libertarian than spiritual. The current prophet was Dread, Vex’s firstborn and most loyal demon—they had been working together since the fifth century. Without the draconian personal restrictions that Vex’s older religions had tried to impose on people, the Fellowship was growing at a respectable rate. Believers emphasized personal responsibility over everything else, and judgment by none. The church’s ultimate carrot was the promise of immortality gained through individual perfection. The fact that none of their followers had attained such a state didn’t matter—the promise of it seemed enough to inspire hundreds of thousands to join the Fellowship.
I knew the other side of the church, the one that had no qualms about subverting laws and blackmailing people to get whatever Vex wanted.
I wasn’t proud of what I did. I hated it. But it was the price I paid for Vex’s protection. After I came to the city and took my job at the Den on C, the demon attacks subsided to a manageable trickle when I gained his support. As the head of his line, he had more power than anyone in the demon world other than Glory, both of whom had been born from the ancient demon, Bedlam. Through Vex’s influence, I was mostly left alone. I was human enough to be grateful for that.
So I stayed at the Den. A savvy owner would have closed it long ago and transformed it into something more profitable. But Michael Horowitz was my benefactor, the most important person I had ever won over with my demon persuasion. Michael gave me the use of the apartment upstairs and the freedom to do whatever I wanted with the bar, as long as I managed everything. It was one of a number of real estate investments he owned, while he managed many more. He wasn’t like other business people I dealt with—Michael cared about me. Aside from work, he made sure I was doing okay, and he bustled in like a doting gay daddy to fix anything I needed.
Most things I was able to take care of myself. I regularly had to cajole city authorities into allowing the rickety old building to remain open, and once I’d resorted to asking Vex to pay for necessary restorations to be done on the facade rather than letting the building be condemned.
I’d thought about asking Vex for money to buy the bar from Michael, but it would put me even more in his debt, and besides, I couldn’t reconcile myself to being a permanent blight on the community. Even with Vex’s protection, demons were drawn to my hybrid energy. But when they couldn’t get to me, they ended up preying on my neighbors instead. It was the reason for the high crime rate in the area. Gentrification had moved in from every direction, but within the radius of a few blocks, my territory still contained too many closed and empty shops. Thanks to me, it was one of the last pits of decrepitude in Manhattan.
After the bar closed in the wee hours, I usually spent the rest of the night inside my apartment. If the other demons knew I rarely went out, then there was no reason to hang around.
That was the price I paid for living the illusion of being human. I could give up the act and stop endangering the people I lived among; I could leave my friends and the bar, and isolate myself, just as I had given up my family for their own good. I could become a wanderer so nobody would suffer because of me.
But what sort of life was that? I wasn’t that big a person. I needed my home and my people. So I sacrificed my demon-self instead. At least, I tried to. I avoided demons, except for Shock.
This included avoiding Savor when I could. He was looking up into the long mirror hanging over the bar, watching me with an amused expression. I usually didn’t have to talk to him to do my job; he deposited the envelopes of dirty money through the mail slot into the foyer of my apartment.
But Savor seemed to take a perverse joy in forcing me to treat him like an ordinary patron.
I went behind the bar and pulled down the crystal bottle filled with an emerald liqueur. I found a large brandy snifter and filled it almost a third of the way. “Sebastian, you aren’t drinking. I know how much you love this.”
“Sorry, I don’t have any money.” He patted his pockets blandly. “I’ll have to pass.”
“I insist. It’s on the house. For bringing Lo chocolate.”
Next to him, old Jose muttered something about bringing candy for booze next time. Savor stalled; he didn’t want the drink. It burned energy for demons to process food or liquids, and was a real drain on the system. “That’s not the glass it’s supposed to be served in. You’re ruining the bouquet,” he protested.
I picked up the snifter and poured the contents into several shot glasses, filling them to the brim. “How’s that, Mr. Silver-spoon-up-his-ass?”
Savor grinned and passed two of the shot glasses to the guys. Old Jose knocked it back in one swig, then grimaced at the sticky-thick consistency. Savor sipped his. “Hmmm . . . lovely. Is this a celebration in honor of the recent birth?”
Thankfully Lolita was in the cooler and couldn’t hear him. I leaned forward. “You felt it?”
“I was coming off the bridge and I felt it. You should be careful, Allay. A blast of energy like that is like sirens calling the hounds home. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a few more of our people hanging around tonight. You’d be better off taking Shock home and getting out of here.”
I snorted. “As if I were going to take advice from you. Shock is safe upstairs, and that’s where she’s staying.”
Savor shrugged. “Do what you want. I’m only trying to help.”
“Why would you help me?”
He pursed his lips as if he were giving me a mock kiss. “We’re on the same side, you silly child.”
“You mean demons versus humanity? In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m on the side of the humans.”
“Ha-ha. No, I mean the whole Vex versus Glory drama.”
“That has nothing to do with me.”
“You think? Because from where I sit, you’re quite the prize for Vex. He’s got the only human-demon hybrid alive in his tight little grip.”
That irritated me. As if I were his pet guinea pig. “I work for him, just like you do. And whether I like it or not, I’m a sixth-generation Vex demon. I’m part of his line.”
“Unlike me,” Savor added, so I wouldn’t have to. Savor was the only demon alive who didn’t know who his progenitor was. Two hundred years ago, moments after he had been born, his progenitor had shoved him overboard into the Indian Ocean. He wasn’t even sure what kind of ship it was, but it was moving so fast that by the time he recovered, he couldn’t sense his progenitor’s signature. The shock had distorted his memories, so he didn’t have much to work from, and he was reckoned damaged by all the other demons. None of them had stepped forward to claim him, so he was a free agent. It was only recently that he had begun working for Vex. I almost envied him his freedom—almost.
“At least I know what it means to be a Vex demon, though you obviously don’t,” Savor added.
“Don’t I?” I gestured bitterly to the inner door that separated the bar from the foyer and staircase, where undoubtedly Savor had deposited a packet of money for me to pass on.
He waved that away. “Oh, that’s Dread’s stuff. He’s the businessman; he handles the administrivia. Vex doesn’t care about Manhattan real estate and privacy laws. Vex is busy stirring up wars and making enemies on a much larger scale than you can imagine.”
“So I’m only a penny-ante accomplice. Not a true minion of evil. I guess I can live with that.”
For a moment, something flashed deep in his eyes, a frustration that he couldn’t voice. Then it was gone. “Don’t sell yourself short, sweetheart. Nobody expected you to live this long, you know. Not only are possessed humans more unstable than new demons, but you’ve got that amazing taste.” He touched the back of my hand so quickly that I couldn’t move away in time. “Succulent, delectable, not demon and not human, but the best of both, distilling the essence of each into one fragrant bouquet. How can we resist it?”
“That’s it.” I picked up his mostly full shot glass of liqueur and poured it into the sink. “You’re cut off.”
Lolita emerged from the cooler in time to hear me. “Allay! Stop picking on Sebastian. He’s not drunk.” Her glance took in the old man who was leaning on the bar with his head nearly touching the scarred mahogany. He was definitely drunk. “Time to go home, Jose. Your wife is waiting for you.”
Savor got up to leave, taking the hint for a change. Lolita sounded apologetic as she bid him good-bye and thanked him for the bite of chocolate. “There’s more where that came from,” Savor promised. His slinky walk was effete as he headed out the door and gave us both a flip of his hand in farewell. Lo was epicurean in her tastes, sampling all kinds of people, including the occasional woman. But the one time when Savor had asked her out—to my shocked annoyance—I’d been relieved when she had laughed it off as a joke.
I barely waited until he was gone, unable to contain myself. “Lolita, don’t encourage him. You can’t trust him.”
“You say that, but you never say why. I like Sebastian. If he asks me out again, I’m going to go.”
“Lo, you shouldn’t go near him. He’s a wily, slimy little bastard.”
She considered it, as she considered everything. “I . . . don’t think so. I think he’s sweet. And a little lonely.”
It was true that Lo’s intuition was almost as good as a demon’s. I didn’t know anyone who was better at assessing people so quickly.
But I couldn’t begin to tell her the truth about how wrong she was about dating a demon. If she had sex with him, he could accidentally suck off too much of her emotion and leave her a slobbering mess. Was I going to have to get tough with Savor? If I had to, I would. I would do whatever it took to keep him away from my people.
3
I was completely frazzled by the prospect of Lo dating Savor. It ruined whatever enjoyment I had left in the demon energy I had stolen from Petrify.
Forget that Savor was just using Lo to get to me—there was no such thing as love when it came to demons and humans. How could there be love when everything was a lie?
Nobody knew me, so I was lonely in spite of the people I surrounded myself with. I wanted a partner to share things with, to struggle with, to learn and grow with.
But it was impossible.
So having Savor come around here and seduce my bartender was too much for me to handle. It pushed my buttons in a very personal way.
I washed the glasses roughly, thinking of what I could say or do to Savor that would make him back off.
I was so distracted and my senses were so overwhelmed by Shock’s buzzing signature overhead that I didn’t feel Pique approaching until he was very close. He was brand-new, and had been around only a few weeks, but already I hated Pique’s irritating signature—a grating, grinding sensation in my bones that rubbed me raw. It was even worse than his unwashed smell.
Last weekend Pique had targeted a green kid from Iowa who came to the Den. When his friends left as he unsuccessfully tried to pick up a girl, he had to walk home alone. I left the bar to Lolita’s care and followed them. I didn’t like the guy, who was too frat-boy privileged for his own good, but he’d been drinking at my bar, so he was my responsibility.
I had to provoke Pique to get him off the kid, and he’d taken the lure and chased after me, leaving his victim woozy but undamaged by his assault. Pique would have sucked him dry and left him for dead if I hadn’t stopped him.
Pique had chased me through the city that night, catching my trail after I lost him again and again. I finally jumped on a subway train heading south and managed to fool him into getting onto a different train. Our eyes had met as my train pulled out, leaving him behind, and I knew he hadn’t given up the chase.
As I hurried over to the window, Pique appeared around the corner across the avenue heading uptown. A line of traffic passed between us; then I saw him again in the shadows, leaning against the metal shutter rolled down over the front of the hairdresser’s across the street. He stared intently back at me.
He must have felt Petrify’s birth. I shouldn’t have been surprised that he, a born vulture, was the first to arrive, sniffing after fresh meat. Pique looked innocuous enough; too puffy, too pale, with a round, doughy face and an old-fashioned haircut. Behind thick-lensed glasses, he sniveled as if from allergies, and his long shorts hung awkwardly from his hips. His sneakers were huge.
Pique might look like a harmless computer geek to everyone else, but I’d seen the truth when he came after me. He was so frenzied that night that he’d ripped my shirt trying to get hold of me to steal my energy.
I had used the Aikido techniques I had perfected to deflect, disengage, and find his leverage points to unbalance him. Then I ran. I was very good at running—and healing. Pique broke my arm that night, but I didn’t care whether he broke my arms and both legs; I would run home, anyway. Pain didn’t matter when I could repair myself later.