Justin Gustainis - Those Who Fight Monsters Tales of Occult Detectives

Lee half expected Tony to be waiting for him in the parking lot. They were used to spending nights apart — hell, they’d spent five weeks apart during hiatus while he was in South Africa shooting a movie — but this… He couldn’t fucking believe they were fighting over a woman. Wasn’t that what straight guys did?

When Tony finally appeared forty minutes later, Lee stepped toward him only to be yanked back into place by the stunt coordinator.

“Trying to keep you from breaking bones,” Daniel growled. “Pay attention.”

They moved directly from set-up to rehearsing the fight scene to shooting the fight scene.

By the time Lee was free and the crew had scattered for lunch, Tony was behind closed doors in CB’s office.

“How long’s he going to be?”

“Jesus, Lee, how should I know?” Amy reached under a fall of matt black hair to adjust her headset. “Stupid PA quit and it’s not like I don’t have the whole office to…” She rolled her eyes as the phone rang. “CB Productions, can I help you?”

His scene later in the day was all weird, esoteric dialogue, the vampire/detective version of techno babble. He should go to his dressing room and run lines, but all Lee could think of was brown eyes and chestnut hair and a blue dress. “I’m done until three. Tell Tony I’ve gone into downtown.”

Amy nodded, rolled her eyes at whatever was being said on the other end of the phone, and waved him toward the door.

Valerie was waiting on the corner of West Cordova and Homer Streets. Well, not waiting for him but since he was the one who drove up beside her, Lee figured she might as well have been. “Hey!”

Her smile made him feel immortal.

“You hungry?”

“Hungry?”

Her confusion made him feel like pounding the men who’d all asked her a different question. “You do eat, don’t you? Come eat with me,” he continued, not waiting for an answer. “You and me. Just food. I promise.”

“Just food?” She pushed her hair back off her face.

“Lunch.” It felt like they were speaking two different languages. “I’ll pay for your time, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“He went where ?”

“Downtown.”

“Son of a bitch!”

“Hey!” Amy lunged up from behind her desk, grabbed Tony’s wrist and hung on. “You want to explain yourself!”

Faster to explain than fight. “Lee’s hooker is something like a succubus.”

“She’s a demon? Tony, do not tell me we’re starting that demon shit up again because we barely survived the last time they came visiting!”

“No, I’d know if she was a demon.” After Leah and the Demongate, if there was one thing Tony could recognize, it was a demon. “I said she was something like a succubus. All her victims are men, probably men sexually attracted to her but…” He waved a hand. He didn’t have a lot of actual fact although the show’s writers had come up with a lot of theories. “Anyway, she’s definitely sucking the life out of them and she wants Lee.”

“Who doesn’t,” Amy muttered, using her grip to fling him toward the door. “Don’t just stand here talking, move!”

The sandwich shop was not the place Lee would have chosen, but Valerie seemed comfortable there, so he tried not to think about health code violations.

“Why don’t you want me?”

The upper curve of her breasts was creamy white.

“I do want you.”

She gave him a twisted smile and stood. “Then why don’t we…”

Lee reached out and pulled her back down into her chair, trying not to think about the feel of her skin. “Look, I want to help you. You can get out of this life. I know people … a person … who has.”

It wasn’t until she glanced down at the bracelet his fingers made around her wrist that he realized he was still holding on. When he let go, she frowned.

“Why are you doing this?”

He shrugged and went with the truth. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

She licked her lips and he couldn’t look away from the glistening moisture her tongue left on the pink flesh. “We should deal with that.”

He gave her back a twisted smile. “I’m trying to.”

Her laugh stroked him. “Not what I meant.”

“I know. Why are you doing this?”

Suddenly, she was only Valerie again. “What?”

“You asked me, I’m asking you.”

She stared at him for a long moment, and, just as suddenly, she wasn’t Valerie, she wasn’t anything he knew. To begin with, she was one hell of a lot older than mid-twenties and when she spoke, her voice sounded as though it came from very far away as well as from inside his head. “I take them into me but it never lasts and I’m alone again.”

Over the last few years, Lee had seen a lot of things that terrified him. This wasn’t one of them. “…maybe it’s just that she’s so vulnerable, in spite of … everything.” What he’d said to Tony still stood. A word like everything covered a lot of ground.

“You don’t have to be alone.” And he was back in the sandwich shop again, sitting across a grimy, laminate table from an attractive woman in a blue dress. “I think you could use a friend.”

“A friend?” This expression, the staring like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, he recognized although he was usually the one wearing it. “You don’t know…”

“I have a pretty good idea.” He shrugged. “I’m the second lead in a vampire/detective show. I read some weird shit. Not to mention, my life has gotten interesting lately.”

“And you still think we could be friends?” She stared at him like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. All things considered, Lee found that kind of funny. “I’m a…”

“Hooker.” He grinned when the corner of her mouth twitched. “Yeah. I know people who’ve got out of … that .”

“That?”

“Something very like that. My partner’s ex is kind of…” It was as if thinking of Tony magically made him appear. There he was, suddenly standing on the other side of West Cordova and even through the sandwich shop’s filthy windows, he looked…

Terrified.

“There’s something wrong.” Lee shoved his chair back and tossed his card onto the table. “That’s got my cell number on it. You can call any time. We’ll work this out. But I’ve got to…”

“Go.”

“Yeah.” He gripped her shoulder as he passed, and ran out the door. “Tony!”

Tony’d found the car but he couldn’t find Lee and his hand was shaking too much to use his phone and…

“Tony!”

He turned in time to see Lee start across the road toward him.

To see the SUV come out of nowhere.

To hear the impact.

To see Lee flung into the air. To see him land crumpled by the curb in a position the living could never hold.

Tony knew dead.

He froze. His heart shattered like Lee had been shattered. Then he took one step. And another.

She reached the body first. Stood there for a moment, searching Tony’s face. Then she dropped to her knees, gathered Lee up onto her lap and pressed her mouth to his.

“Oh my God! I didn’t see him.”

Panicked hands grabbed Tony’s arms, fingers digging painfully deep in a grip he couldn’t break.

“He was just there .”

All Tony could see was a red face and wide eyes and a mouth that wouldn’t stop moving.

“I swear I didn’t see him. I wasn’t going that fast. He didn’t look . He was just there! ”

Then other hands grabbed and other voices started to yell out words that stopped making sense and Tony finally managed to break free.

He found Lee sitting on the edge of the road, his jeans were torn and there was blood on the denim, blood on his shirt, and a smear of scarlet lipstick on the corner of his mouth.