Personal Demon

HOPE: THE FACE OF AN ANGEL

Bianca knocked on an office door, waited, then opened it. Behind the desk sat a man about my age, with a close-cropped Vandyke and short braids. He was running figures through a calculator, and his eyes stayed fixed on the result as we walked in. His suit coat hung on the chair behind him, and his white shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal well-muscled dark forearms. Guy Benoit, the gang leader.

“Guy? This is Faith.”

“The Expisco?”

“Yup.”

He grunted something that could have been “good,” then jotted down a figure before looking up. A cold-eyed evaluation, but unlike Romeo’s, I couldn’t tell whether I’d passed or failed. A second grunt and he returned to his accounting. I glanced at Bianca. She’d made herself comfortable, draped in a chair, long legs crossed in front of her, blue eyes fixed on Guy.

“I presume Bianca told you the rules of conduct?” he said, fingers flying over the calculator.

“She did.”

“Thus ends your training, Faith. We expect our recruits to hit the ground running. Your crew mates will help, but don’t expect anyone to hold your hand. If you don’t work out, there are a dozen more to take your place.”

“Yes, sir.”

I added the “sir” instinctively, thinking even as the word left my mouth that he might take it as sarcasm. Had this been a job interview, I’d have been seriously considering how badly I wanted the position.

“I don’t need to tell you the importance of being a loyal crew member. I’m sure the recruiter explained what happens to those who betray us, either intentionally or through carelessness.”

“Yes.”

“Then we won’t need to discuss that ever again.” He lifted his gaze to mine for a split second before returning to his work. “This club has a line every night yet it barely breaks even. For us, it’s all about the marks. Miami is full of rich brats looking for a good time.”

From the twist he gave “rich brats,” I wondered whether the cover story Benicio gave me had been such a good idea.

“They have expensive tastes in everything, from women to booze to dope, and while that would be the easiest way to divest them of their trust funds, it’s a fool’s gambit. What we run here is a legitimate business, following every law right down to fire code regulations. There’s more than one way to fleece a mark. If a young woman overindulges and passes out on our premises, it’s our duty to see to her and make her comfortable. But we’ll unload her apartment while she recovers. From your dossier, I believe that’s the sort of thing you could help with.”

I nodded. “I dated a professional thief a couple of years ago. I used to go on jobs with him. Just for kicks.”

His lips tightened and I cursed under my breath. Benicio had screwed up. Or, at least, misjudged. Maybe most gangs were rebellious, undisciplined kids looking for easy money and a good time, but Guy took his job seriously, and expected his crew to do the same. A spoiled socialite looking for “kicks” wasn’t welcome.

I tried to make up for lost ground. “I know how to use picks, torque wrenches, snap guns and shims. With the right tools, I can do impressions, but I’m still learning that. I can use a Slim Jim and hotwire a car. I know the basics of safe drilling, but I’ve never opened one myself. I’ve disarmed simple security systems. What I’ve had the most practice at, though, is simple stealth skills-moving quietly, avoiding security cameras, foiling attack dogs, that sort of thing.”

A grudging nod.

A rap at the door. Again Guy didn’t answer, but the door opened after a few seconds. In walked a stocky young man, who looked no older than twenty.

“Rodriguez, this is Faith, the new recruit. She’ll need a phone and pager, but that’s not why I called you in. I want to talk about this next job.”

Bianca stood and waved me to follow her. She made it two steps, then Guy said, “Bee? I need you here.” He yelled something that sounded like “Jack,” and the guy who’d let me into the club appeared. “You and Sonny take Faith to dinner. Make her feel welcome. Think you can handle that?”

The young man grinned. “I believe I can manage.”

“Just don’t talk her ear off. I want you both back by nine. You’re on floor duty tonight. Oh, introductions. Faith, Jasper. Jasper, Faith.”

The young man shot Guy the finger. Guy only smiled and shooed us out.

“Jaz, please,” he said to me. “No one calls me Jasper. Not even my mother. The moment she recovered from her temporary insanity, it became Jaz on everything but official documents, and I plan to change those too, as soon as I can be bothered filling out the paperwork. Now to collect Sonny, wherever the hell he’s hiding-”

“Right behind you,” said a deep voice.

Behind us stood a young man, Jaz’s size, but with straight dark blond hair to his shoulders, a deep tan and an angular face that wasn’t ugly, but would never make it onto a billboard.

Jaz slapped him on the back. “Hey, bro. Guy just gave us another tough assignment. Gotta take Faith here out to dinner and chat her up. Faith, this is Sonny. Met him in preschool. Our first joint effort was putting worms in the sandbox and we’ve been together ever since.” A wink my way. “Though the pranks are a little more serious these days.”

He kept up a near steady patter all the way out of the club and down the street. He asked about my test, then told me about his and about Sonny’s. Jaz had been with Guy’s crew for a year now, with Sonny following him the next time a spot opened-they hadn’t wanted to compete against each other. Jaz paused for breath only long enough to ask what kind of food I liked.

Normally, such nonstop chatter would have put me off, but in Jaz it didn’t seem to be nerves or ego. It seemed like…energy. Endless energy, needing an outlet, and I could feel it, like low-level chaos rippling from him.

Over dinner, Jaz tried to let me do some of the talking, but considering that my life story was a fake, I was just as happy to let him continue.

He told me a bit about himself and Sonny. Nothing overly personal, just enough to be friendly. First, supernatural type. I hadn’t been able to pick up vibes from either, and soon understood why. Both were the same minor type, magicians-a watered-down version of a sorcerer.

That they’d met in preschool was no coincidence. Their parents had worked in the St. Cloud Cabal satellite office in Indianapolis where they’d attended a school selected by the Cabal. An otherwise ordinary school. There was no risk in that-supernatural kids didn’t come into their powers until their teens. They’d be encouraged to befriend those classmates whose parents worked with theirs-kids they’d see at Christmas parties and picnics and on the company’s Little League team. Then, when they grew older, they’d already have someone who could share their supernatural coming-of-age experience, someone they could talk to and commiserate with. Watching Jaz and Sonny, seeing that easy camaraderie I’d lost with my human friends, I felt a pang of envy so sharp it was hard to eat.

They were younger than me, both twenty-three. They’d left home as teens and drifted about ever since. That wasn’t surprising. I knew what it felt like, suddenly being different, with secrets to keep, powers to understand, searching for your moorings, for your identity, your place in this new world.

Jaz and Sonny seemed to have found an anchor in the gang. Neither had any complaints and that seemed genuine, not a put-on for the new girl. Jaz gave me a rundown of all the members: their races, positions and personalities. He certainly made my job of intelligence gathering much easier.

As dinner stretched well past the hour mark, I relaxed enough to take a closer, more critical look at Jaz. If I had a type, he wasn’t it. The mop of curls to his jawline was longer than I liked. His eyes were too big, too soft. His mouth was too wide, too sensual. His build was slender, almost graceful. The overall picture was…I hate to say feminine, because there was nothing girlie about him, but there was a pretty-boy quality that was a far cry from-

I stopped myself. Karl wasn’t my type either-too suave, too polished, too old.

But as for the puzzle that was Jaz, I solved it over dessert. When he twisted in his chair, the angle was just right to ignite a memory and I knew what he reminded me of: the angel Gabriel at my grandmother’s church.

I’m sure there’s something sacrilegious about having a crush on an angel, but I’d only been six or seven at the time. Gran was a proper society lady, one who had expected her son to grow up and marry a debutante. When he brought home an Indian girl from college, she hadn’t been disappointed or angry, but simply, I think, confused. Like most women of her class and generation, this just wasn’t a possibility she’d considered. But he was obviously in love, and the girl was as bright and beautiful as any debutante, so Gran gave her blessing.

She loved us as much as she did any of her grandchildren. Even after the divorce that didn’t change. If there was any problem with Gran, it was only her need to make us feel we belonged. Hence the angel Gabriel.

When we visited, I always went to church with her because I knew it pleased her and it pleased my mother. Above the pulpit was this enormous painting of flaxen-haired, pale-skinned angels, and the artist had decided to single Gabriel out by making him dark-haired and brown-skinned.

To my grandmother, Gabriel served as proof for me that I was just as welcome in God’s house as anyone, so she never failed to rhapsodize over how beautiful he was, and how being different from the others made him all the more special. A heavy-handed lesson, but her heart was in the right place. I spent many hours in that church staring at Gabriel with his soulful eyes and dark ringlets.

So the mystery of Jaz’s attractiveness was solved. But it didn’t make my heart patter any less when he turned his soulful eyes my way. The face of an angel covering a mind more inclined to devilry. Under the circumstances, it might be just what I needed.

AS WE LEFT the restaurant, Jaz said, “So you’re an Exustio? Or is it Aspicio?”

“Expisco,” I said.

“Exustio is fire,” Sonny said. “Aspicio is vision.”

“Damn half-demon names. All sound like Latin to me.”

“Could that be because they are Latin?”

“Smart ass. Even Guy didn’t know what an Exp-Expisco was. Had to get Bianca to look it up, and she had a hell of a time.”

“It’s a very rare subtype,” I said.

“And a weird one.” He glanced at me. “No offense, I just mean most of you get some elemental power or enhanced senses. Being able to sense trouble just, well, doesn’t seem to fit.”

“Full-blooded demons usually have special powers plus chaos sensors. Most half-demons get the powers without the sensors. I just get the sensors.”

“Huh.” He walked for at least ten steps in silence, which told me something was wrong. Before I could ask, he said, “The reason I’m bringing it up is that, well, Guy’s…not convinced.”

“That I am what I say I am?”

He nodded. “I wanted to give you a heads-up. He’s going to test you, and soon.”