K Stewart - A Shot in the Dark

The animal was a dark charcoal gray, almost black, and it had to outweigh my squirrels back home by a good chunk. Its ears were adorned with enormous tufts of hair. Looked like my great-uncle Walt.

“In someone else’s flesh, you mean. Nice ears.”

“Yes, they are rather nice, aren’t-” He preened with one front paw until he realized what he was doing; then he looked at his offending foot in horror. “Oh hell no. Wait there.” With a flick of his brushy tail, he disappeared around the tree again.

“Slipping into something less furry?”

“You could say that.” The face that appeared around the tree a few moments later was all too human looking, Axel taking his usual pierced, Mohawked guise.

How he did that, I will never know. I mean, most demons, they can hide their true form, make an illusion over it that looks human. Even the weaker ones, the Snots and Scuttles can manage that much. Guess it helps them relate to their victims. Touch them, though, and your hand will go right through it, like a hologram.

The true forms, the actual demon bodies, are constructed of solidified blight. That’s how we’re able to banish them, cutting away bits and pieces until they lose concentration and the ability to hold themselves together. Demons come in a lot of different forms: the Snots, barely more than brainless oozes; the Scuttles, often insectoid and a bit more intelligent; the Skins, usually some kind of fur-bearing animal, strong and cunning; and the Shirts, the ones who have evolved enough to look vaguely human. I’d fought them all, at one time or another. I thought I had a pretty good handle on what to expect.

But Axel… If he was a Shirt, he was the most human-looking one I’d ever seen, and his constructed body was rock solid. Which meant that he was either way more powerful than any demon I’d ever seen or… or I don’t know what. Yet another of those mysteries I was unlikely to solve anytime soon.

The squirrel, now unpossessed-dispossessed?-shot out of the underbrush like a gray rocket and up the nearest tree, chattering its displeasure.

“What are you doing here?” I stood up, glancing around warily. The last thing I needed was one of the guys catching the demon here. I’d never be able to explain that away.

“Looking for you.” Axel rubbed at one of his ears, then frowned at his hand. “Damn rodents.”

“I’m not that hard to find.”

The squirrel was still scolding him from the branches above, and Axel shot a red-eyed glare. “Watch it, or I’ll eat your entrails.” His answer was a walnut launched at his head with surprising accuracy. I liked the squirrel already. Axel bared his teeth at his former host, then turned his attention back to me. “I’d have caught up sooner, but that damn mutt was too close.”

Okay, supreme beings, bless Duke in all his furry glory. I was so getting that dog a huge rawhide bone when we got home. “Stalker much?”

“Oh that’s nothing. I almost mistook your brother for you, until I heard him speak. That could have been… awkward.”

I went from being creeped out to pissed off in zero seconds flat. “You stay away from him. He’s off limits and you know it.”

Axel held up one hand to forestall my incoming rant. “Now, now, no need to get feisty. I didn’t come here for that.” Another walnut pelted him in the head, and he snarled at the branches above. “You’re a furry hors d’oeuvre, I swear…”

I snapped my fingers to get his attention. “Focus, Axel. Why did you come here?” The more I looked at him, the more I thought there was something… off. Something in his usual smile, some tightness around his mouth, or his eyes. The way he sagged against the tree, almost like he actually needed it to keep himself upright. “Are you okay?” Part of me wondered why I even cared.

He ignored my question but seemed to take it as a challenge, pushing off the tree to stand on his own. It didn’t escape me that he wrapped one arm tightly around his ribs, holding himself in pain. “I came to give you a message.”

I saw how he stayed close to the tree trunk, dodging as much of the fading sunlight as he could. Now, I’m pretty sure the light doesn’t physically harm them, but man, demons don’t like it. The forest canopy provided just enough shade where he was standing to throw his face into darkness.

“Step into the light.” Unlike most demons I’d dealt with, Axel had never made special efforts to avoid the sun. Something was wrong. Well, more wrong than usual.

“I’ll stay here, thanks.”

“What’s up, Axel?”

“Let’s just say I’m not at my best today, hmm? Now shut up and let me give my message.” His eyes flashed red and stayed that way. I was pissing him off.

“From who?”

“Doesn’t matter.” He moved one step closer, and as his face passed out of the tree’s shadow, I could see it clearly for the first time. His lower lip was split and swollen, and the right half of his face was a lovely shade of eggplant purple. Axel had obviously had a very bad day.

“What the hell happened to you?” More importantly, how the hell had it happened? I’d never seen a demon with visible injuries. At least ones I didn’t cause myself. Damn, how much damage did it take to bruise blight?

He managed a pained grin, running his tongue over his teeth. “A fairly accurate description, actually. You ever see those videos of family Thanksgiving dinners that turn into all-out brawls? Think of it like that.”

“You had a family food fight?”

He chuckled. I will never get used to hearing my laugh come out of a demon’s mouth, and the muscles in my back twitched as I tried not to shudder. “I guess you could call it food. If it’s any comfort to you, I came out on the winning side.”

“I’d hate to see the other guy.”

“Oh yes. You would.” The smile faded quickly. “You need to get off the mountain.”

Normally, I would laugh in the face of any order Axel gave me, but there was something in his eyes, something in his borrowed voice. It sent another wave of chills down my back. “You’re the one that told me to come up here.”

That earned me a frown. “You ever hear of reverse psychology?”

“Yeah, and you suck at it.” I finally closed the distance between us, just so I could lower my voice. Who knew where the guys were? “Did you flatten Marty’s tires?”

His mouth twisted as he contemplated the answer. “I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

“And turn Will’s alarm clock off?”

“Hey, that was just him being a moron. I had nothing to do with that.”

I could feel the beginnings of a headache, somewhere behind my eyes. “Any particular reason why?”

“You’ll find out. But get somewhere public. Somewhere you can put your back against something solid.”

“That sounds like a threat, Axel.”

He shook his head. “Not from me. I’ll swear it if you like. Just. .. do as I ask, this one time.”

Everything in me screamed no. You don’t do what a demon asks, period, the end. Even if (especially if) they phrase it to be for your own good. I eyed him warily, as if I could drag secrets from him with the power of my charismatic gaze. Or some shit. “What’s in it for you? You don’t give out information for free.”

The demon’s eyes flared red again in the dappled shadows, and he spat a curse in a language I didn’t understand. Even so, the single word made my vision swim and the trees around me tilt at bizarre angles for the space of two breaths. Demonic speech is not meant for human ears. The cussing that followed in English was easier to follow.

“Damn you for your stubbornness, Jesse Dawson. You are the most infuriating creature on this planet.”

“You been talking to my wife?” When in doubt, resort to being a smart-ass.