Selling Out (40 page)

“You know,” Max stated, all her concentration apparently on her skillet, “it doesn’t take a Sherlock to figure out that whatever’s got her spooked is about Mom and Dad. And I bet you know what it is.”

Malachi reappeared at that moment and went to the sink to wash his hands. Lila ripped him a piece of kitchen towel silently and handed it over. “No I don’t,” she said, noticing Malachi’s ear tips twitching and knowing he’d heard enough to know what the conversation was about. She braced herself. “I was hoping we could find out before she comes back.”

“We need magical powers better than mine,” Malachi said, frowning as he wiped his hands clean, concentrating on every finger and nail. “Nec—” he began as Lila affirmed, “Necromancy.”

The two of them locked gazes for a moment and smiled.

“Yo what?” Max said, half-turning.

But Lila was fully focused on Malachi for the moment, her grief forgotten. Remembered important facts sprang to her head and straight out of her mouth as they entered one of those brief periods of perfectly tuned partner-function. “Max saw a demon that looked a lot like Teazle. Doesn’t have to be him, though. And his talents don’t stretch beyond sending people into death, far as I know. I don’t think he brings them back.”

Malachi nodded. “Maybe coincidence. Lots of demons have similar colourings and shapes to the untutored eye. And no telling which of any of them is Teazle’s form, since he can theoretically take any. Also, he seems to like you . . .” His lips curled into a snarl of disgust on the left side of his face, exposing his fang teeth. He screwed up the paper towel into a ball.

“. . .
somethin’ screechin’ screamin’ poppin’ breathin’ waitin’ at the end of the hall
. . .” Zal sang cheerfully from the radio.

“I am here. Feel free to fill me in, only I thought you said something about talking to and/or possibly raising the dead,” Max said, looking between them anxiously. Something spat in the fat behind her but she ignored it.

“I don’t want to call anyone,” Lila said, holding Malachi’s amber stare and willing him to know why, which he always seemed to do: she didn’t trust anyone but him.

He dipped his chin half an inch in affirmation. “I don’t know any deathtalkers. You got a plan?”

“Yeah,” Lila put her hand over her heart. “I got one. I investigate the scene and figure out whodunnit. Then we go fix that. During, or immediately after, that we find Zal before my ticket to prison in Demonia comes into force.” She held up the wrist with the shackle on it. “We also watch our backs for a deadhead demon and a shadowkin elf terrorista with a grudge. And possibly there might be some trouble from expired duel notices I got . . . I’m still not sure how they work. And then . . .”

The doorbell rang.

Malachi was looking at her with his lower jaw hanging slightly open. There was a smell of blackening onion.

Lila breezed on. “I’ll get it, while you fill Max in on the details. We need somewhere safe for her to hide out,” she said, trusting Malachi to figure that out because she wasn’t sure she could think of anywhere in the circumstances. She went out to reassure the dogs as they started barking, then locked them securely into the back porch.

Grudgingly, knowing it was dangerous because it linked her more comprehensively into the Incon networks, Lila set herself to one level below Battle Standard as she walked down the hall. She needed to get back to base and get information on this incident and other things, before they figured out she wasn’t planning on collecting her retirement fund. That would need to be somewhere high and soon in the plan.

She scanned through the door and saw two figures, one tall and humanoid and one short with four legs. She opened it, her left hand hanging loosely in the relaxed state that allowed maximum reaction speed, ready to defend herself.

Teazle was standing there looking recognisable but peculiarly more human than last time, as if he’d been practising. He was smiling. In his hand was a lead, and on the end of the lead was a tan and white dog of nondescript breed with a fox’s tail and husky ears, wagging.

“Okie!” she said in astonishment, bending down straight away to hug her dog.

Pleased yips and whines filled her ears for a minute, and a cold nose pushed at her neck through her hair. She looked up at the smiling demon who let the lead slip from his fingers as Okie shook himself and licked Lila’s face.

“I’ll be your dog,” he suggested, his pale eyes shining. “Even though you seem to leave us in care most of the time.”

From the back of the house Rusty and Buster barked harder.

“Where . . . how did you get him?” Lila asked, fussing Okie and ignoring Teazle’s remark, mostly because she had no idea what to do with it.

“I’m very persuasive,” Teazle said, tossing his hair over his shoulder with a grade-A camp flip of his head. “Also, I paid the overdue fees and the bills for his shots. Haven’t you ever heard of Direct Debit?”

Okie sniffed her all over, whining a little as he smelled things she assumed he didn’t associate with her, like metal and oil. In her chest a strange warmth. It was wrong to be happy in the circumstances, utterly wrong, but she was.

“Oojie boojie boozum poppet, yes, yes . . .” she said to Okie, burying her face in his ruff as he whimpered.

“Something’s burning,” Teazle observed, his stare never leaving Lila, though his nostrils widened slightly. She was sure by the tone of his voice he wasn’t referring to the dinner but used the line he’d thrown her anyway.

“Pasta sauce.” She straightened up, feeling obliged to ask him in now, her face heating up—which made her furious. “There’s just one problem,” she kept her fingers on Okie’s head, stroking in his fur. “I don’t trust you, and I don’t invite people in that I don’t trust.”

There was a sharp tug on her ear and Thingamajig appeared. “If I might . . .”

“No,” Lila said. Okie yipped and then barked loudly at the sight of the tiny demon atop Lila’s shoulder, envy and anger warring in the sounds. “It’s okay,” she told him. “It’s not another pet.” The barking subsided to growls.

“You never called me Oojie boojie!” Thingamajig cried sulkily.

Teazle gave the imp a look that caused it to go still and silent. “What your debased minion means to say is that proposals, defence of your life, offers of service, and the return of lost loved ones are not matters a demon would attempt in order to deceive. If I wanted to do you harm I would take the straight way. To do otherwise is dishonourable.”

“My sister saw someone who looks like you killing my parents,” Lila said.

Teazle’s right eyebrow lifted slightly. “You don’t know what I look like.”

She hated it when he was right. But she wasn’t wrong either. “Which helps how?”

Teazle lifted his empty hands, palm up. His human version was utterly convincing, he even smelled right. She and the dog had both noticed. He sighed theatrically. “What must I do?”

Lila looked down at Okie. Rusty and Buster were pausing in their mini-outrages to listen periodically. A sudden inspiration struck her. She looked at Teazle and then at the front steps, pointing at them. “Sit. Stay.”

The demon inclined his head to her in a bow, turned his back to the door, and sat down, resting his arms on his knees and looking out across the street.

“And don’t let anyone in,” Lila added, shepherding Okie through into the hall. “And no barking. The neighbours are having a good enough time already.”

Teazle waved lazily with his right hand without looking back. She closed the door and locked it. That was dealt with. Sort of. She wondered if she could leave him there indefinitely . . .

Back in the kitchen, Max was snapping extra-long spaghetti in half to fit the only remaining pot as Malachi talked. They both looked up as she came in, and then down at Okie, and then up at Thingamajig, riding high.

“What did I tell you about door-to-door salesmen?” Max asked.

“Oh, this is
my
dog,” Lila explained. “Someone brought him round . . .”

“Someone?”

“From the kennels,” she said and continued rapidly. “Will dinner be ready soon? I’m starving . . .” And, since that statement got her past the table and to the back door, she reached out, opened up, and went out to introduce the dogs to one another without waiting for more questions she didn’t want to answer.

“Sooo, this is your house!” the imp declared as the screen door hissed shut. It stared around, ignoring the dogs as they tried to jump up and investigate it. “What a tragic halfway-up-the-ladder place it is too. The suburban despair of the major Otopian communities rivals any torment a mere imp could dream of. So subtle, yet so completely overpowering. Why, I bet you were an anger-fuelled harpy on the path to middle-class redemption long before they pulverized you and made you into an actionbot. Oh, look, there’s a guy in the next house taking photos of us. I guess you got to expect that what with the police tape and stuff all around the place . . .”

“What?!” Lila abandoned her daydream of barbecuing the imp on a stick and swung around to look. Sure enough there was a sudden twitch of curtains from the big beige fake Georgian opposite. Who lived there? She didn’t remember. For an instant she moved forward, ready to march across and sort them out, take their stupid camera and smash it flat. Then she realised that the Otopia Tree would delete the images anyway, since it was illegal to distribute information about crime scenes except via the police.

“Some people are just bottom grubbers,” the imp said scathingly. “No matter what they think of themselves. Total feeders. They’se the kind of crimes gets you made into lower than imps, into asprits who have only the power of swearing and the power of naysaying. Not here though. Here it gets you a fancy house. I sees that all through your world history. S’like none of you have a sense of what’s right and wrong in a being. Youse never stop the worst ones when the stopping’s good and you never hesitate to string up the good ones before they even finish a sentence.” It spat a tiny burst of yellow flame and crisped a few strands of dry grass that poked up between the nearest rails. “Did you know lesser demons come here on holiday to feel good about themselves?”

“Shut up,” Lila said. She calmed the dogs and prepared to leave them in the enclosed porch with bowls of dry food and water. Rusty and Buster were so soft they accepted Okie without a care. It was Thingamajig they didn’t like. They all snarled at him and he cringed against her head and pulled faces at them.

She was with the dogs. The one thing that was spoiling her plan right now was the imp. She had to get rid of him, at least for long enough to let Tath out to examine the scene. Briefly she considered asking Teazle for advice, but she didn’t want him any closer or to be more beholden to him than she already felt. She decided to take the demon’s code at face value and said to the creature, “What do I have to do so you get lost for a couple of hours?”

“Not forever?” the imp piped hopefully.

Lila groaned inwardly. “I thought that was too much to ask for . . .”

“I
knew
you was starting to appreciate me! A’course you could kill me easy. I know that. But it’s an honour to be asked, ma’am. An honour. Why, I could manage a little time perusing the city’s fine sights I believe . . . let’s say for the sum of not less than a hundred bucks?”

Lila straightened from filling the water dishes and frowned. “I thought imps were attached until Hell was all done? No reprieves.”

“Of course
technically
that’s true,” Thingamajig declared, rubbing his paws together and looking hungrily at the dogs’ dinners. “But for people who don’t want us dead we can make a few rules bend. No harm in it. But afore I go I must remind you of the salient points of your personal Hell, as is my duty.” It stood straight and put its hand to its heart. “You need to face up to the fact that you were sold out big style by a whole bunch of people who don’t care about it one bit. And now you’re a slave of the state, and everyone who had a hand in it has their own game to play that includes you but isn’t about you. They care, sure. What’s not to care about a huge risky investment that’s running around with half a brain of its own? That’s all they know. And they’ll do anything they have to so you stay in line, even give ya a fake life and a nice dog and a house and some dates with a hot elf. Sure, it’s true.” He paused for breath. “Now gimme the hundred.”

Lila sent a banking instruction via the Tree. “And, what can I do about it? If getting out of Hell is keeping it real . . . what do I do to achieve that?”

“You figure it out,” the imp said, shrugging. “Not my problem. Listen to your heart, as my old mother never used to say cos no one in Demonia needs to know that. See, I already overstepped the line. My business ends with the telling it how it is.”

Lila told it how to collect its cash from a bank outlet downtown.

“One thing,” it said, letting go of its aching grip on her ear. “I do know ’bout Hell. You can stay if you like. Nothing in particular will happen. There ain’t no special thing about it. Sometimes it seems much better than the real thing when you don’t know the real thing and it looks like a lot of pain to get to it. You choose. That’s all. Everyone got their time and everyone chooses. You get me?”

“Why did
you
choose it?” Lila asked.

The imp went quiet for a moment. “I wonder,” it said, head hanging low, and then without warning transformed into a small orange fireball and zipped off through the unopened screen door into the garden air, leaving a tennis ball-sized hole.

“That’s fifty bucks right there!” Lila shouted after it. The dogs looked at her. “Don’t ask,” she said to them. “It was a stray and I was tired.”

Back in the kitchen the pasta was in the water. Max was listening to Malachi do a good impression of a secret agent with everyone’s best interests at heart. They were both seated at the table. All the
Great White
poker magazines belonging to mother had been stacked on the counter. The top issue promised How to Hold ’Em Out for More.

“I’m going in to do the search,” Lila said, at a break in Malachi’s talk. “Stay here and I’ll be back in ten minutes.”