Demon's Delight: An Urban Fantasy Christmas Collection Read online

  “Oh, so now it’s my fault?”

  I scowled. It’s always been her fault, but no, I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of pushing that particular button. “Make of it what you will, Mother, but I have to go do my job now. If I miss you later, Joyous Festival and Merry Christmas.”

  She started to reply, but I hung up before she got far.

  Nigel looked at me. “You know, family is—”

  “A private matter,” I replied, cutting him short. I saw that expression on his face, the same one Dad gives me when he’s honestly trying to help. “Sorry, Nigel. Mother and I … our Christmases will truly be merry only if we experience them separately.”

  He nodded. “Well, that’s your choice.”

  I was considering an equally passive-aggressive retort, but we reached the front of the line just then, and I decided that launching into an argument when confined to a chairlift was not a winning strategy.

  The chairlifts are another import from Earth, but instead of carrying holiday skiers up the snowy slopes of a mountainside resort, they were carrying us poor wingless humans up and down the rocky slope that divided Upper and Lower Karthai. Demons, of course, simply flew it. It was a nice glide down, and a demon who couldn’t manage the upward rise shouldn’t trust himself to fly. There was another section further to our left where the slope was shallow enough to allow a few blocks of switchback streets so that it could be traversed by foot, but the chairlifts were much faster. This one, in fact, was much more direct than walking would have been, taking us to within a few blocks of our destination.

  Nigel sat beside me in silence on the way down, taking a few pictures of Lower Karthai as we descended. “Personal panoramas?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I’m a tad acrophobic, but it doesn’t look so bad through a telephoto lens.”

  Fair enough. If I’d ever had any fear of heights, flying through Hell in the arms of a demon friend cured me of it. Minutes later, the slope settled out, and the chair slowed at the terminal to let us off. From there, I led Nigel another two blocks downslope and one over.

  The Santa I was looking for next wasn’t going to be found in a market. Back on Earth, he would have been in the back of some disreputable biker bar, but in Hell, all bars are disreputable—at least by Earth standards. No, here I was looking for something between a hook-up bar and a sex club. The flashing-neon barbed phallus over the door was exactly the sign I was looking for.

  It’s not that demons have no subtlety. They just don’t waste it on sex.

  The inside smelled of demon musk, and as someone who spent puberty surrounded by that smell, I was immediately drawn in. It didn’t hurt that the clientele were mouth-wateringly gorgeous and dressed—or more often undressed—to show it. There were demons of almost all types and genders here, from a MILFish kagnari with a pair of handcuffs dangling from her left horn to an incubus whose physique drew my eyes from his subtle horns down to his stylishly capped hooves and halfway back. Yes, Sexy Santa was there in the corner wearing the traditional cap and the not-at-all-traditional red velvet loincloth. Apart from some jewelry, that was all, but it was still more than his three helpers, a trio of coal-black succubi tricked out in green caps and nothing else.

  Like I said, this wasn’t the kind of place Big Jim was going to send sweet little Alice. If only he knew. I glanced back to see Nigel frozen with his mouth hanging open. “Deep breaths, Nigel, and remember to blink.”

  He nodded, glanced away for a moment, and then the professional mask returned. He’s a photographer, after all, so I figure this couldn’t be the first time he’d seen nudity like this. Well, maybe not quite like this. The MILF with the handcuffs was twirling them around her horn while one of Santa’s helpers was stroking Santa’s tail suggestively.

  There was no photo setup for Sexy Santa, but a number of demons—both male and female— were taking turns sitting on his lap or having his helpers sit on theirs. And the sitting was verging on grinding at times. I made my way forward like I was ready to dive into the deep end, and as I entered the fray, Sexy Santa shooed a mottled-gray incubus off his lap.

  I didn’t waste my time being coy. This was Sexy Santa after all, so I straddled his lap and wrapped my legs around the back of the chair. It wasn’t quite as sexy as it sounds since I was in jeans and his loincloth was closer to my tailbone than anything truly intimate, but more to the point, it put me face to face with him where I could have all his attention.

  “Are you ready to be naughty and nice?” he asked.

  “Maybe later,” I said. I mean seriously, he was smoking hot, and I was not at all opposed to coming back later for some Christmas festivities of my own.

  He pulled me in close and rubbed his cheek against my breast. “Then what would you like?”

  I breathed him in and stopped caring very much about Big Jim’s wild Santa chase, but then I remembered that Nigel was there. I pulled back and looked down to lose myself in his eyes for a long moment. Focus, focus, focus. “I … would like … to find the Santa that rode in on a pethek last year.”

  He laughed, not with Santa’s ho-ho-ho, but with the uncontrolled guffaw of a braying ass. “Fires above! I heard about him!”

  I blinked a few times to find my brain. “You did?”

  “Yeah, a buddy of mine at work says he dropped a great big sack of candy on the roof of Karthai Castle, and the guards almost shot him down.”

  I grinned like an idiot. This was actually starting to sound real. “Do you know where he is?”

  “The guy? No. But Choktan—that’s my bud—said he ran into him over the summer.”

  “Where?”

  “No idea, but Choktan could tell you.”

  I looked around. “Is he here?”

  “Nah, still at work waiting tables.” He reached up to his cap, and pulled a pen out of the seam by the fur. I started to reach for my little pad in my back pocket, but he took my hand in his and simply scrawled it out on my palm.

  “Tarket Gich, 2274 Atep,” I read out loud. Tarket Gich translated loosely to “Savory Flesh,” but referring to food, not the savory flesh of the incubus beneath me. It had to be a restaurant, and Atep Street ran along the far edge of Lower Karthai, about twenty minutes’ walk from here. “Do you have his phone number?”

  “Yeah, in my phone.”

  “And your phone?”

  He licked his lips and gave his hips a little thrust. “In my other pants.”

  I thanked him and ran my hands down his chest and across his lap as I stood. Hey, if Santa can grope me, why can’t I grope Santa?

  I found Nigel in the corner with one of Santa’s helpers draped across him in a way that I didn’t think his wife would approve of. It’s not that I know she’s a prude or anything, but when Nigel saw me grinning at him, he blushed redder than Santa’s cap and awkwardly extricated himself.

  Outside, he straightened his collar and shook out his legs.

  “So, what was it you were saying about family?” I asked.

  “Family … um …”

  “Isn’t here, so don’t sweat it.”

  He nodded, sighed, and Nigel the professional was back. “What next?”

  “This guy confirmed what the last Santa said. There really was a guy who rode in on a pethek last year and dropped candies on the castle.”

  “And?”

  “And Santa’s friend might know where he is.” I held up my hand with the address.

  He furrowed his brow. “Atep …”

  I jerked my head back the way we had come. “Twenty minutes. Less if we hoof it.”

  And off we went. I was in decent shoes for it, since I had known I’d be coming to Hell and its cobblestone streets today. I had chosen a pair of black Westwood knockoffs with rubber soles and enough of a heel to bring my diminutive height above the cubicle walls back at the office. Nigel was in even better shoes than I was, but he was also carrying an extra forty pounds, and only a fraction of that was camera equipment. Within three blocks, we had s
lowed to a brisk walk, with Nigel panting hard, but just as he was recovering enough to talk, my phone rang again.

  This time it was Dad, a welcome voice for once. “Hey, Pops. What’s up?”

  “Just checking in. Are you still planning to come down to Karthai tonight?”

  “I’m already here, but I’m tracking down a story.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll have it wrapped up in time for dinner.”

  “Then you are still planning on coming over?”

  “Of course,” I replied. I still might sneak out after for a little revelry, but knowing Dad, he might, too.

  “Ah,” he replied. That’s when I heard it in his voice. Something was up.

  “What’s going on, Dad? Is there some reason I shouldn’t come over?” I knew Dad was dating around, but I didn’t think any one of them was serious enough for him to invite over for a holiday dinner.

  “No, it’s … To be honest, your mother called.”

  I pulled the phone away from my mouth and let out a stream of curses the likes of which even Dad would flinch at. Nigel stared at me and took three steps back. Finished with my tirade, I brought the phone back to my face, and in the calmest voice I could muster I asked, “And what, pray tell, did dearest Mother have to say?”

  “Look, Ally, it’s not that I don’t want you to come over for Christmas. I’ve got a slab of kaltep roast in the crock pot, simmering away.” The mention of it alone made my mouth water. Kaltep roast makes lamb seem tough by comparison. “But it sounds like this is important to Paul, and—”

  “Fuck Paul,” I said.

  He went quiet, and for a moment I thought I’d lost the connection. “Ally, Paul and I haven’t been close since … well, we were never that close, and most of the blame is mine. We barely talk anymore, and if it’s important for him to have his sister there for his fiancée’s first family Christmas, then I don’t want to be the one to stand the way of that.”

  “But Dad, I—”

  “I know. I was looking forward to it, too, but how about we push it back to New Year’s. Not Eve, mind you, just the day. I’ll cook up some more kaltep, and we can watch the Rose Bowl.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, sure. Whatever, Dad.”

  “Now, Ally-cat, don’t sulk.”

  I ground my teeth to hold back my reply before settling on “Look, Dad, I’m working on a story, so I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up before he could reply.

  Nigel glanced at me, but I glared back hard enough that he simply raised his hands in surrender. I gave him a nod and turned down the street again.

  No matter what Dad said, this was not about him and Paul. This was Mother at her manipulative best. Guilt-ball off the Dad side and into the corner pocket for the win. Well, to the depths with her. I’d make sure Paul knew it wasn’t Dad’s fault, say that he had bowed out but that I’d gotten stuck on the story. I would still miss Dad’s cooking, but I had friends in Karthai that I could hook up with on short notice. Shit, I imagined I could even go hang with Sexy Santa and his friends if it came down to it.

  But by the fires above, I was not going to give in to Mother.

  We smelled the restaurant before we saw it. As there were no elements to keep out, like the market before, the restaurant was relatively open to the air, but there was a tasteful iron lattice surrounding it and beams forming something of a roof. It didn’t control the elements, but it did control the patrons, keeping the paying ones in until they’d paid and keeping some of the nonpaying scavengers out. Don’t get me wrong. Most demons are forthright and proper. It’s not them that the roof was keeping out. Rather, in this part of Karthai, we were near the Dathir Quarry, a nesting place for the impish marek . They are notorious scavengers and—let’s be honest—outright thieves. Without that roof, the place would’ve been an easy target for them to swarm en masse. With it, it never got a first glance, let alone a second.

  It was too early for dinner, so we had no trouble getting a table. There was a broad menu, but clearly the special was spit-roasted kaltep. Unlike Dad’s in the crockpot, this one was turning slowly over an open flame in a section of the kitchen we could all see. If you’ve only eaten kaltep and never seen one, it has six legs, no wings, and is a little bigger than a hippo, so spit-roasting one is a spectacle. Pieces near the edges were cut off as the hours wore on, with the inner portions cooking slow at first and then faster as they were exposed directly to the heat. It’s about as anti-vegetarian as you can get, and the aroma extends for blocks.

  All the walking had given me a little appetite, so I ordered a kaltep kebab with hot sauce. The hot sauce in Hell is neither Tex-Mex nor Cajun. It’s more like a curry sauce with a hint of Texas BBQ. I know that sounds impossible, but come try it sometime. Only four waiters were on duty for the afternoon crowd, so it was not a big deal to ask to see Choktan.

  He was an incubus like his Sexy Santa friend but not quite as sexy, at least not in his uniform that looked as generic as those in any chain restaurant back Earth-side. “I see you’re already enjoying your kebabs. Can I refill your drink?”

  Nigel nodded and pushed his glass forward, but I patted the seat next to me. “Actually, a friend of yours sent us to talk to you.” I held out my hand with the smudged ink still legible.

  He pulled the chair out, sat on it backward, and flared out his wings behind him, granting us a hint of privacy from the scattered staff and diners. “Let me guess, it was Bhant.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Does he like to dress up as a sexy Santa Claus?”

  He laughed. “No, that would be Taruk. Fun guy, but not the most reliable. I’m covering his shift because he bailed.”

  “I see. Well, the truth of the matter is I’m looking for another Santa.”

  “Like Taruk?”

  I shook my head. “He said you knew about one who flew in on a pethek last year.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I kind of do. I mean, I saw him doing it. More of a red-vested bomber than a Santa, though.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “Somewhere out in Bhatari,” he said. Bhatari was a more agricultural cavern on the other side of the Dathir Quarry. The kaltep roasting beside us had probably been raised there. “But if you’re looking for a Santa, you’ve got the wrong demon.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I ran into him at a concert feast a few months ago. Warrick Bint is his name, and he’s just a rancher. I’m pretty sure his candy bombing run on Karthai Castle was a one-time thing.”

  “I don’t suppose you got his number?” I asked.

  “Sorry.”

  I thanked him, and Nigel tapped his empty glass again. After Choktan had refilled it and left, Nigel took a long draught. “More of a dead end than a lead,” he said.

  A quick directory search for Warrick Bint yielded nothing, so I had to admit that he was right. “So yeah, no story.”

  Nigel nodded slowly. “Or you could throw together a few column inches to go with the pictures we got back at the market. It’s not much, but it won’t leave Big Jim with a hole to fill in tomorrow’s Lifestyle section.”

  He was right about that, but after everything with Mother, I wasn’t about to abandon my position in Hell to go back to the office to write it. I didn’t have my laptop with me, but I was able to bang out a few paragraphs on my phone while Nigel finished off his own kebabs and a bit of mine that I’d abandoned.

  “There,” I said after hitting send, “you’ll have some text to go with your photos. If Big Jim asks, that’s all we were able to get.”

  He drained his glass. “And you? If we hurry, we can still get the 4 p.m. train back into Pittsburgh.”

  I shook my head. “No, I’ve made my decision, and Christmas alone in Hell is better than spending it with my mother. Believe me.”

  He shrugged. “OK, it’s your decision.” Translation: you’re making a mistake, but I’m not going to rub your face in it. Maybe he was right. Deep down, I understood
that, but a girl has to have her principles; if I gave in to Mother this time, she was going to be walking all over me for a year to come.

  I waved goodbye to Nigel at the restaurant’s front gate and considered my options. I was sure if I simply showed up at Dad’s front door, he wasn’t going to send me away. In fact, he wouldn’t even mention the conflict. He would respect my decision. Of course, even with Choktan’s warning, going back to his friend Taruk and his Sexy Santa posse sounded a lot more fun than going stag to Dad’s. Or, I could hook up with one of my old high school demon friends and make a real night of it, Sexy Santa or not.

  Or I could go to Bhatari and track down Warrick Bint. In retrospect, I can’t honestly say if my decision was more about tracking down the story or more about justifying my excuse for standing up to Mother. Either way, my course was set. I was on my way to track down Warrick Bint.

  There were three ways across the Dathir Quarry and into Bhatari. First, I could simply fly across. Well, I could if I were a demon and had wings. Second, there was a freight line that ran through the tunnels between Karthai and Chapik with several stops along the way. It’s not exactly Amtrak, but I’ve hitched a ride in the engine-car more than once. Still, it wasn’t very predictable as a passenger transport. That left another set of chairlifts. I’d only ever ridden these particular ones once, and they’re not for the faint of heart. But the wingless can’t be picky, so that’s how I was going.

  The actual lift terminal was about eight blocks away, but since I figured I’d already satisfied Big Jim’s request, I wasn’t worried about the deadline anymore. I took my time. I passed by a few shops and even checked out the window display for one selling kitchenware. They had a fancy nut juicer for some of the harder nuts that grow in Hell. Earth-side we think of nuts as dry, but down here, if you can crack them open, there’s a pulpy center to many of them with flavorful oils inside. This juicer was something of a cross between a pepper grinder and a miniature jackhammer. Dad would get a lot of mileage out of it, but at eighty-nine dollars it was too rich for my meager salary. Still, he had a birthday coming up in April. I might be able to find one used by then.