Hell Inc. (27 page)

The
fist yeti grunted at the second yeti who moved forward menacingly.
Its gaze flicked rapidly from me to the first yeti, and it mumbled
something unintelligible. I coughed and cringed as both their icy
gazes swung to me. The next thing I knew, the second yeti was on top
of the first and beating it in the head with the club. Shocked, yet
rather relieved to not be on the end of the rapid swings and wet
thuds, I stood up and made towards the elevator at a run.

"You
no move, human!" The second yeti screeched, releasing the first
and sprinting after me, grabbing me by the shoulder and flinging me
into the wall. The sphinx stood silently by and made no move to
help. The bastard. "You cheating human, you no leave!"
The first yeti, surprisingly still alive despite the intense spray of
blood in the hallway, stood up and rubbed at a gaping wound in his
forehead.

"Gyiarava!
I told you, I no cheating! Especially not with hairless, smelly
human!" The second yeti turned and glared angrily at the first.

"You
lie," It (she maybe?) said rubbing at suddenly tearful eyes.
"You run away to this human? How you no cheat?" The broken
English was getting to be a little much for me.

"Hey
there, Gyadaba, or whatever your name happens to be, you don't
actually think ... " I looked at the first yeti's large,
white furry body and shuddered. "Well, you know." The
second she-yeti had begun sobbing and threw herself into the first
yeti's arms. The situation was getting a bit too awkward for me to
handle. "I guess I'm just gonna go now," I said, inching
my way away from the two embracing yetis. The he-yeti pointed at me
with one thick, hairy finger.

"No,
I know you. You no go. I angry with you, Ginger Malloy." At
the sound of my name, I stopped trying to escape, curiosity replacing
my fear. As always, I berated myself for being so stupid but hell, I
wasn't going anywhere until I found out where he'd gotten my
information from.

"Have
you been talking to that damn mummy?" I asked him, angry
already. The yeti glared at me with his blue eyes.

"You
make people see us," he grunted, stroking the she-yeti's wiry
back fur. "You bring more humans to our home and they take
pictures." Great. Another one.

"Well,
I'm working on that," I said, sheepishly. This was getting to
the point of ridiculousness; first it was the vampires/mummy, next
the fairies, and now freaking yetis. Awesome.

"Can
I go now?" I asked the two French kissing yetis. They broke
apart just long enough for both of them to glare at me.

“You
no go anywhere, we need have word with you,” I bit my bottom
lip and tried to think of some excuse plausible enough to
not
have this conversation.

“Look,”
I said, holding my hands out in a placating gesture. “My
friend is being held captive by a group of crazy and probably
schizophrenic fairies.” Maybe I could appeal to the yetis'
sensitive sides, if they even had them. “Anyway, I'm not going
anywhere until I get her out of here.” I pointed at the
nearest door, not really knowing which one I was looking for without
the sphinx's help. He looked as if he were perfectly content to let
me figure that part out for myself.

Both
yetis looked askance at the door. “We open this for you, you
help us?” I didn't know what helping them entailed, but I
figured after looking at their biceps (which were thicker around than
your average tree trunk) that I would end up being bullied into it
regardless.

“Yeah,
sure,” I murmured, stepping back to allow the first yeti I had
met to stomp over and grip the doorframe with his massive hands. In
less than a second I was greeted with the image of a young couple
having sex on their dining room table. In less than another second,
I was greeted with them screaming and the other guests opening their
doors and gaping at me. They couldn't see the yeti of course, but
what they could see was me, standing there with a floating doorframe.
How that must have looked. I tried to smile, but I'm pretty sure
that all I got was a horrible grimace.

“I'm
with management,” I said ridiculously. “We're remodeling
the hall.” The yeti looked back at me.

“This
your friend?” it asked me, lurching forward before I could
answer and grasping the man by the collar. I held my hands up and
took a step back.

“No,
no, sorry. Sorry,” I gave a half-assed wave to the shaking
couple (who had just experienced being ripped apart by an invisible
entity and thus were a bit shaken, as they were entitled to be). “I
got the wrong room, it's this one.” I pointed to the only
unopened door in the entire hall. The she-yeti rolled her eyes at
the he-yeti and said something else in their guttural language before
proceeding to remodel the other door in much the same manner as the
first. I pushed past her and stumbled inside.

Surveying
the immaculately clean room, it was obvious that Erin wasn't there.
There were no fairies either. “Thank the gods for small
miracles, I suppose.” Seeing as to how there was only one
hallway, my exploration didn't last long. The door at the end of the
hall was locked but luckily for me, I still had my yeti carpenters.
“Hey furry,” I pointed to the door. “Can you help
me out with this?” The yeti grunted and squeezed down the
hallway. Her body smashed me into the wall, and I thought I was
going to suffocate, what with the compressed airway and the smell of
unwashed dog wafting through the room. This time she kicked the
door, sending it smashing into an inanimate object in the center of
the small bedroom. This inanimate object turned out to be Terrence,
tied to a chair.

“Holy
shit!” The yeti moved out of my way as I rushed to untie him.
His skin was sliced up a bit and there was an excessive amount of
debris in his hair, but other than that, he looked okay. No missing
fingertips or bamboo shoots under his nails. My conscious warned me
to be careful around him, but I needed to ask about Erin. It was
starting to look as if he might be telling the truth. The thought
frightened me. If it really were true, then it meant that Levie
could have been double crossing me. I didn't really believe it, but
I couldn't rule out the possibility. As I peeled the tape off of
Terrence's mouth, he let out a deep, gasping breath.

“You
scared the shit out of me,” Terrence croaked. “But
thank you,” he finished, struggling to stand up. I grabbed him
by the elbow and helped him
get his feet under him. “I thought a bomb was going off. The
fairies did threaten me with one, after all.” As much as I
wanted to ask Terrence about Erin, or about being an incubus, or
maybe about trying to date rape me, the absence of the fairies was
starting to get to me.

“Where
did they go?” I asked him, hoping maybe one of the pixie dust
carrying sadists had said something aloud. Terrence shook his head
and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.

“They
just disappeared without a word. But I do have this for you.”
I took the piece of paper from his hand and unfolded it. It wasn't
in any language I could read, except for the address that Terrence
had highlighted. “I wanted to give it to you before anything
else happened. I think this could be the answer to all of your
problems.”

I
watched him suspiciously and backed towards the yetis. I was
assuming that since they needed me to reverse my wish, they might
protect me from a crazy incubus. “Where's my friend?”
Terrence shook his head and brushed more drywall from his hair.

“She
was here when they first tied me up but they took her away no less
than an hour ago. Ginger,” he stepped towards me, voice silky
smooth, and I retreated another step. I wasn't going to trust him as
far as I could throw him.

“You're
an incubus?” Terrence blinked surprised eyes at me.

“Who
told you that?” he asked me, stepping over the chair. I backed
into the female yeti. She clasped her massive hands on my shoulders.
It hurt but I could tell she was at least trying to be gentle.

“You
want me kill him?” she asked me, tightening her grip slightly.
I tried to pry her fingers loose, but they wouldn't budge.

“That's
quite alright,” I gasped. “At least not yet.” She
released me, and I took a teensy step forward. Between a rock and a
hard place had a new meaning for me. “It doesn't matter who
told me that, Terrence. You tried to freaking date rape me. What
the fuck is your problem?” Terrence shook his head.

“It
was Levie, wasn't it.” I raised my eyebrows at him.

“How
do you know his name?” I asked, trying to breathe through my
mouth and ignore the smell of wet dog and plaster. Terrence met my
eyes and for a moment, just a moment, I got a strong urge in my lower
parts. Fucking incubus.

“He's
the heir to Hell Inc. After Lunen left, he was the only remaining
family member willing to comply with their rules.” Wow. This
sure was news to me. At least it explained why Liam had referred to
Levie as the CEO when he first saw him. “Everybody knows who
he is.” I shook my head. Things were starting to make sense.
And not in a good way. “Ginger, they hired me to put the Love
Potion in your drink. I swear it. Because I'm an incubus, they
wanted us to have sex so that I could drain your guardian energy but
it had to be willing. They threatened me just like they sent the
fairies to threaten you.” I shook my head. I still didn't
trust Terrence, not one bit.

“I
don't believe you.” Terrence rubbed a hand through his hair
like he was the one who should be stressed out.

“I
can prove it to you. We'll go to that address I gave you. I can
help you get your friend and your life back, Ginger, if you'll let
me.” I looked back at the yetis and shrugged. They seemed
intent on kidnapping me anyway. They might as well bring Terrence
along, and a lead was a lead. The sphinx finally decided to show
itself and squeezed past the yeti into the room.

“An
eye for an eye will ruin your depth perception.”

How
helpful he was.

The
yetis had been surprisingly gracious in their kidnapping of us (quite
unlike the fairies, who had yet to be seen since their assault on
me), and I was even starting to like the one named Gyiarava or
whatever her name was. The sphinx on the other hand seemed downright
delighted to have company in the guarding and harassment of one,
Ginger Malloy.

“You
won't have to worry about a thing,” I lied smoothly. Or at
least, I thought it was a lie. It seemed too easy to believe what
Terrence had told me. Really. Far too easy. But I was going along
with it for Erin's sake. In the long run, it was death by vampires,
death by fairies, or death by yetis. None of which sounded
particularly appealing, even if the yetis happened to be very polite.
And the cherry on top of my shit sundae was the fact that I was
going to be the Devil's bitch for an untold number of centuries after
said death occurred. So of course my hopes were up as high as they
could possibly get given the situation, and I was feeling almost
cheerful.

We
found the address easily (don't you just love GPS?) and rode in
Terrence's Mercedes, the sphinx and the yetis easily keeping up
alongside, and I was knocking on the door before I had a chance to
reconsider. “You want me knock it down?” Gyiarava asked
just as the door was opened by an anorexic thirteen year old with a
noticeable absence of breast development. Or she could have been a
Victoria's Secret model. Either way, she smiled coyly at us.

“There
something I can help y'all with?” she drawled in a very
rehearsed sounding southern accent. Terrence cleared his throat, but
I beat him to it.

“Is,”
I had to pause a moment to reread the name on the printout Terrence
had given me. “Is Diamokina here?” The girl blinked
stupid sleepy eyes at me and then pulled the door open and gestured
Terrence and me in, leaving the yetis and the sphinx to stand watch.

“Just
wait right here,” she whispered, shuffling slippered feet
across the burnt orange linoleum. The house smelt like patchouli and
pot, and I stifled the urge to cover my nose while Terrence shifted
and leaned closer to me.

“You
know,” he said softly. “I was hoping you'd come to my
rescue. I really do like you, you know.” Ah, one of the last
things I was in the mood to talk about.

“Yeah,
well, that's just great. You might've thought about that before
drugging me.” It sounded overly bitter, but that's how I felt.
Bitter and pissed off. I ignored the hurt look on Terrence's face
(I didn't buy it for a second) and focused on the orange skinned
creature that was now swaying towards us. She held a pipe in her
hand and smiled wickedly at me, revealing a rather nasty looking row
of sharp teeth.

“You
a shark or a genie?” I blurted out of nervousness. Goddess
knows only a moron would say something that stupid to an immortal,
supernatural being, but hell, maybe I really was a moron and I just
hadn't realized it yet. The genie laughed and the bells and jewels
displayed prominently on her wrists, ankles, and ears tinkled
merrily.