The Lie Spinners (The Deception Dance) (11 page)

Jones
looks between us, he says, “What are you talking…?
Räum’s power…? Master thief…immobilizer
…prophesier… reconciler… invoker of—shit!”
Jones wheels around and punches his asura’s middle face so hard
and fast that he yanks his hand out of the way before her blood
sprays everywhere. His asura screams, all her hands going to her
middle face and letting go of Jones.

Jones
doesn’t hesitate, he runs, leaving me and Cassidy in the alley
with the two enraged asuras.

Stupid
Jerk Face!

“
Bloody…wait!”
Cassidy yells.

“
Get
him!” our asura screams right as the door swings open.

The
monster that ducks out of the doorway is the most demonic creature
I've ever seen. Eight feet tall, obesity doesn’t even begin to
explain his bulk; fat rolls overflow his tight leather thong. His
skin rolls forward like a carpet of hair and red bulging boils. But
the most revolting and terrifying thing about the creature is its
large devil’s face that spreads into sharp horns at his temples
and chin. A large sharp nose hooks over his fanged mouth.

"Looks
like
Räum
does
have some demons working for him," I say. Strangely, I feel a
small relief to see the demonic creature. At least one
thing
here can't kill me…

"Not
a demon," Cassidy says, shaking her head, "That would be an
Oni, a Japanese ogre."

Or...
maybe not.

Cassidy
whispers, "do not trust anything you—" She's cut off
by the asura's hand slapping over her mouth with an audible ‘smack.’

The
asura's middle face says, deadly serious, "You have chosen the
wrong party to poop in,
singto
!"

Both
Cassidy and I stay completely still for one moment, then we
simultaneously look up to the asura's middle face, then each other.

The
Oni opens its devil’s mouth and speaks in a low, gruff voice,
"Yes, we don’ not want any party-poopers.”

"You
try and poop in my party again, I will kill you," the asura
says.

If
there's a list of the worst times to laugh, while being threatened by
a homicidal three-faced, six-armed she-monster is probably right up
there on top of the list. I bite the inside of my cheek, hard.

The
Oni lumbers out of the doorway and music blasts out so loud that it
could be used as a weapon, not to mention that it’s some
American pop song that was overplayed three years ago.

“
Move,”
The Oni bellows.

The
asura shoves Cassidy ahead of her and keeps me behind, the descent is
awkward because Cassidy and I refuse to let go of our held hands. The
asura restrains me with two of her hands and watches me by her
right-face. Not that I could escape with the Oni, a wall of pestilent
flesh, following way too close behind in the stairwell. I try to hold
my breath because I would take open-sewer over Oni any day of the
week; talk about body odor, only possible description:
ugh-guhh-ughhala, which coincidentally was the same sound that the
Oni makes as it descends the stairs. The smell is so bad I’m
considering suicide by tripping in front of Oni (which would be an
awful way to go), when the stairway ends. We’re emptied into a
gymnasium sized room and I’m assaulted with so much more than
eua’de Oni.

I’ve
been to a demonic party, I’ve seen demonic hordes break out of
the earth and drop from the sky like monstrous birds—this is
something completely different. Hundreds of multicolored creatures
bustle around a giant center-ring in the gymnasium. That’s what
really stands out, the colors, like the Indian tapestries I saw in an
art exhibition once. But most of the creatures look distinctly Thai-
with their sharp headdresses and golden armor.

I’m
sure many of the creatures are asuras, with their distinctive three
faces and six arms, but they come in every color. And there are other
colorful demon-like creatures, tall, skin a bright red, green,
purple, blue, or other colors, these are the ones dressed in gold
armor with giant golden headdresses.

Other
colorless wrath-like shadows drift from place to place; these dark
ghosts seem to be avoided by the rest.

The
colorful creatures play instruments, pass money back and forth, some
even fight amongst themselves, but most of them are shouting at the
center ring. In a roped off square on the raised center, two bright
blue humanoid fighters face off.

One
blue man kicks the other in the face; his opponent flies back, then
springs like a lizard, twisting and kicking the other man in the
side.

“
You’re
taking us to a Muay Thai fight?” I ask, glad that I know what
Muay
Thai
is. I’d never thought I’d think this, but…
Thank
you, Albert, for constantly having the sports channel playing on the
only television in our Victorian mansion
.
Either the Oni trudged away or my olfactory sense just straight
quit-because suddenly I can breathe without thoughts of
self-impalement.

The
asura’s right face smiles down at me (or at least I think it
does because its teeth are pretty much perma-bared), saying, “
Singto
is
here to fight; I will place a big bet on her.”

“
And
me?” I ask.

“
Not
fight, no,” the asura’s right face says before it joins
its other faces in staring at the center ring. I remember Cassidy
saying that the asuras are what they are because of their
single-minded pursuit of the baser aspects of life. The asura’s
attention fixes almost wholly on the fight, as the other asura was so
easily distracted by the idea of hurting a stray dog… I need
to use this.

But
I know my idea has come too late when the Oni wakes the asura from
her stupor by yanking Cassidy out of the asura’s grip. As
Cassidy and I are holding tight to each other’s hands my arm
threatens to rip out of its socket. I can’t help it, I scream
and try to drop Cassidy’s hand drawing even more of the asura’s
attention.

Cassidy
holds on tight to me. When the Oni yanks again, we both scream and
Cassidy grips so hard I can feel her nails biting into my wrist.

The
asura punches Cassidy’s arm and, with a sickening cracking
sound, her elbow twists the wrong way. Cassidy bellows a sound close
to a roar, her grip drops and arm flops to her side.

“
Now
I will bet on the other guy,” The asura says. To the Oni she
says, “Take her to the fighter’s pit.”

“
Cassidy!”
I shout but I’m sure Cassidy can’t hear me over the
bellowing, yowling sounds she’s making as the Oni drags her
away. “Cassidy!” I scream.

“
Come,
come,” the asura says, dragging me in the opposite direction.

“
What
are you going to do to her?” I demand as I fight to stay where
I am.

The
asura uses two of its hands to gesture to the fighters in the middle
just as one of them kicks the other so hard, his head separates from
his body and goes flying over the crowd; the asura says, “Same,
same, but different.”

“
Cassidy!”
I shout, and fight, knowing that neither is of any use; the asura
easily drags me along, out of the crowd and into a corridor on the
far side of the gymnasium. “Where are you taking me?” I
ask, because if this was a movie this would be the point where the
evil crony would say a one liner that maybe I could use to my
advantage; but the asura obviously didn’t get the evil-crony
script, because she says nothing.

As
she drags me along it occurs to me that I am probably being dragged
to a greater demon who has the ability and every reason to kill me.
And the moments slip by as we round another corner, and then,
suddenly, all the calm I have snaps inside of me and I’m
flooded with red-hot-panic.

He
is going to kill me! Right here, right now. I selfishly wish that
someone: Cassidy, Jones, my sister, Stephen, Madeline, anyone, could
be in here with me… I don’t know, to maybe save me or at
least witness what was about to happen.

The
asura slides open a huge red metal door in the wall; she half shoves,
half throws me into the room. I stumble, and then I fall onto
someone. I jump back, smacking my butt hard on a linoleum floor. I
look over at the man who’s also on the floor, who I just fell
onto.

What
is my problem!

I
want to scream, to rip out my hair and bang my head against the
linoleum; because I’m so stupid and so selfish: I got my last
stupid wish… someone I care about to die with.

“
Raven…?”
comes his hoarse voice, “What…?”

I
feel like screaming, though I don’t; I crawl over to the man
chained by his ankles and wrists to a wall, the man I recognize, and
whisper, “What are you doing here, Nicholas?”

Day
Three (continued)

Nicholas
smiles, and it breaks my heart. Even being a captive, chained and
obviously beaten (from the black and blue state of his face), can’t
dampen the joy that boy can pack into his smile. His busted lip
splits and a trickle of blood drips onto his chin. “Me?”
he says, voice raspy, “I live here. How can you be here? What
happened to Albert?”

“
I’ll
leave you two to get reacquainted,” says the asura, who,
amazingly, I forgot all about. She steps back through the door,
slides, and slams it closed on her way out.

A
rustling sound draws my attention up, but the ceiling must be really
high because blackness stretches on and on above us. The small room
we sit in stands completely bare and empty except for one dim
free-standing lamp in the corner; the walls look to be… metal?

“
I
think it’s a converted trash shoot,” Nicholas says,
answering my look.

“
It
smells better in here than it does out there,” I say. Looking
over, I see that Nicholas’ face still drips blood. Crawling to
him, I wipe his chin with my shirt, it’s awkward, but I manage.
“Albert is fine,” I say, “Madeline kind of
kidnapped me to bring me here…”

“
My
guess is that it wasn’t to save me,” He says, still
smiling.

“
Not
so much, she completely omitted you, actually.” Then I figure
out exactly what Madeline was lying about that Linnie warned me and
Madeline put a spell on Cassidy not to reveal. “It was on
purpose, I think. She probably didn’t tell me about you because
she didn’t want me distracted from saving Stephen.”

“
Stephen
knows how to pick them,” Nicholas says.

I
bite my lip, as strangely, Nicholas’ last statement sits
uncomfortably in my mind. “Madeline might be a psycho but
Cassidy Dixon is pretty cool.”

“
Cassidy
Dixon and Stephen were
never
a couple,” Nicholas says, vehemently.

I
decide to mentally back away, slowly. The last thing I want right now
is to get in a fight with Nicholas about his misplaced prejudices. I
don’t know what Cassidy did or, I’m starting to suspect,
what happened to her, but as far as I’m concerned Cassidy Dixon
is firmly on my ‘good people’ list.