Every Demon Has His Day, page 9
Constance wasn’t due back to the Magnolia Café until dinnertime, not that there’d be a big rush, anyway. Jose told her on the phone that the customers were still staying away, so she’d spent the afternoon with Dead Jimmy. So far, they had dropped by the only pet store in Dogwood and the pound, and neither one had French bulldogs, much less talking ones in pink sweaters. Now they were headed to see Mae Kenneth, Dogwood County’s most famous dog breeder, who happened to specialize in French bulldogs and Welsh terriers. One of her terriers actually placed in Westminster. She was the county’s premiere dog expert. Her house sat on ten acres, and as Constance pulled into the drive, she noticed the backyard was a patchwork of dog obstacle courses, complete with small rings, little platforms, and poles for racing around. The porch was lined with ceramic casts of little bulldogs and terriers.
“Don’t do anything to embarrass me,” Constance told Dead Jimmy as the two made their way to the front door.
“Like what?” Dead Jimmy asked, giving himself a good scratch.
Just then, a Welsh terrier tore out of the backyard and came at them like a bat out of hell, barking and baring its little teeth. The thing was barely bigger than a roll of paper towels, but it looked ticked off for sure.
“What the hell?” Dead Jimmy exclaimed, and just when Constance thought she might have to kick the dog in self-defense, it collapsed on the ground by her feet and started wagging its tail and licking her shoes like it was her best friend.
The front door swung open then, and Mae Kenneth stepped on the porch. She was a tall and broad woman with shock red hair who was wearing a bright blue muumuu trimmed with little cut-out dogs on the collar and matching blue sandals. The bright red hair made her age hard to guess, but Constance put her somewhere between forty and fifty-five.
“That’s Caitlin Elizabeth Victoria,” she said, grabbing the black and tan terrier and tucking her under her arm. “Sorry about that—she’s nearsighted and pretty much blind as a bat. She likes people, but only when she gets close enough to smell them.”
Caitlin sniffed the air where Dead Jimmy was standing and gave a little growl.
“Yikes,” Dead Jimmy said, taking a step back.
“Caitlin! Be nice,” her owner scolded, giving her a little shake. “So? What can I do you for?”
“I called on the phone? It’s Constance Plyd and I’m looking for a French bulldog.”
“For show? Or for home?”
“Uh, home,” Constance said.
“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” Mae Kenneth said. “Come on in.”
Inside, Mae’s house was full to bursting with all things dog. Terriers and bulldogs were on every available surface, even on the throw pillows of the couch and the big wool rug in the living room. On the mantel stood rows of dog trophies, and above the fireplace, a painting of two French bulldogs dressed like Spanish conquistadors. Barking seemed to come from every room, and Constance’s feet were suddenly tangled up by a rush of little French bulldog puppies, each one giving happy little yaps as they jumped at her ankles. Everywhere there was the hint of wet-dog smell, and every available surface seemed to sport a thin layer of dog fur. Being closed in with so much dander made Constance’s eyes and nose itch. She tried to delicately peel the puppies from her leg without looking like she was doing so, and dug around in her purse for a Kleenex.
“Cute little buggers,” Dead Jimmy said.
“Do you have any full-grown dogs I could adopt?” Constance asked, trying to suppress a sneeze as she swiped at her nose.
“Sure, sure,” Mae said, leading her back to the kitchen. The teapot was covered with a giant cozy in the shape of a terrier, and all her pot holders were shaped like French bulldogs. “I only have a couple of adults who aren’t for breeding, but you can take a look if you want. There’s Lucy,” she said, pointing to a French bulldog curled in the corner of the kitchen who didn’t bother to raise her head when they came in the room, “and Napoléon.” She pointed to another dog sitting near the front door. He looked to be at least ten pounds overweight, and gave a loud bark. He sat sloppily, with one foot sprawled out in one direction and the other collapsed under his potbelly. Constance studied each one carefully, hoping that one of them might give her a sign, like a wink, or a wave, or even an actual word—something to show they were the dog she was looking for. But she got nothing but blank dog stares.
“This might seem like an odd question, but do you have any dogs with pink sweaters?” Constance asked. She wasn’t about to ask if any of them talked.
“Pink sweaters?” Mae echoed, confused. “Um, no, but you can buy that sort of thing online. There are designer dog clothes labels now, you know.”
“Um, right, I was just wondering if you happened to have one with a pink sweater already.”
“No, I’m sorry,” Mae said, giving her a suspicious look.
“And are any of your dogs, uh…especially talented?” This was as close as Constance was going to get to asking her if any of her dogs spoke English.
“Oh, they’re all talented,” Mae gushed, and went on to list all the tricks of her brood, and how the shape of their legs and wide set of their eyes were markers of a pure breed. It was clearly a subject Mae was fond of, because she talked at length, down to the specifics of the breeding habits of Napoléon. “Of course, he developed testicular cancer last year,” Mae said. “And we had to have him neutered.”
“Ouch,” Dead Jimmy said. “Tough blow.”
Constance did her best to ignore him. She sniffled a little, trying to keep her runny nose under control, and rubbed at one eye.
“You have a cold?” Mae asked her, concerned, holding out a box of tissues in a ceramic tub shaped like a French bulldog.
“Just allergies,” Constance said, taking a tissue and blowing her nose.
“I hope not to the dogs,” Mae exclaimed.
“Er, uh, no, no,” Constance said, twisting a strand of her hair. “So, uh, tell me more about the dogs. Are they, um, particularly…religious?”
“I don’t know what you mean by religious, but French bulldogs are very smart,” Mae continued. “They’re also very easygoing with fantastic temperaments. Don’t pay attention to the history of the name—you know, they became known as French bulldogs because they were once favored by French prostitutes.”
“You don’t say!” Dead Jimmy exclaimed.
“Why was that?”
“Well, they were easygoing and didn’t mind taking short naps in hotel rooms,” Mae Kenneth said.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Dead Jimmy said, and let out a low whistle.
“But then the artistic types in France began to adopt them, too, to show how daring they were,” Mae continued. “And it looks like all these years later our celebrities are doing the same. You know, I hear the French bulldog is the new Chihuahua. Dante London has one. You know she’s coming here to film that movie. I’m hoping to get a glimpse of her bulldog. I hear she’s a fine specimen. Wait, I have a picture here somewhere.”
Mae rummaged around the ceramic terrier-shaped magazine holder by her couch and pulled out a new copy of People magazine. Mae’s hands barely covered the ample cleavage of Dante London, the barely legal pop-singing sensation who was threatening to take Britney Spears’s place as America’s pop princess with her smash single “Devil Made Me Do It.” Dante was from a small town in West Virginia, and had more boobs than brains. The cover blared “I’m still a virgin!” which was amazing considering that in her last video she’d rolled around wearing nothing more than a red latex bikini and sequined devil horns in a giant tub of cherry Jell-O.
Mae held up the cover of the magazine, and Constance nearly froze on the spot. In the crook of Dante London’s arm was a French bulldog—wearing a fuzzy pink sweater.
“Hey—there it is,” Dead Jimmy said, pointing.
“Um, Mae, do you mind if I take a look at that?” Constance asked.
“Oh, sure, here you go,” Mae said, putting the magazine down on the coffee table. “Now make yourself comfortable while I go get us some sweet tea.”
Constance leaned forward as Mae retreated into the kitchen, and picked up the magazine.
And then something strange happened. The very second she touched the picture of Dante London, she felt like she’d been shocked by an electric current. Her eyes widened in surprise, and then they glazed over and rolled back in her head. She felt a surge of energy go through her, and she was frozen to the spot. And then the images came running past her eyes like TiVo on fast-forward.
She was having a Vision with a capital V.
And it was as vivid as it was sudden: Dante London, barely legal pop princess and queen of all things white trash, was destined to become the mother of the Antichrist.
ELEVEN
Can we run the siren, y’all? Like, I’ve totally never heard a siren before,” Dante London said to Nathan, who had picked her up in his squad car from the Dogwood County Municipal Airport after her personal jet had landed on the small runway. She had emerged from her plane wearing shiny aviator sunglasses, a fur bikini top, cutoffs, and UGG boots.
“No,” Nathan said. He was more than a little annoyed to be on escort duty, but the judge had ordered him to do it, and he couldn’t trust anyone else, especially Deputy Robbie, to make sure that Dante London got safely and without undo hassle from the airport to the set of her new movie, Devil’s in the Details, at the Higgins Ranch.
Dante London stuck her considerable lower lip out in a pout.
“Pretty please?” she asked him, batting her eyelashes. Nathan thought she probably practiced this look in front of a mirror when she was eight and perfected it a decade later. He was sure this worked on most men, but he simply wasn’t interested. He’d dated plenty of Dante London types in his past: pretty, spoiled, and without a single coherent thought in her head. He’d been down that road and he had no intention of going back.
Objectively, London was incredibly attractive, which was why she was voted by Details magazine as the Sexiest Jailbait in America three years in a row (pretty much until she turned legal last month). It didn’t help that despite claiming to be a virgin, she liked to parade around in latex, leather, and in one case, nothing but red body paint on MTV’s VMAs. But Nathan knew she was a headache just by looking at her, and he planned to stay a million miles away.
“The siren is for emergencies only,” Nathan told Dante, who slumped back in her seat and crossed her arms across her chest. She looked like his niece—back when she was small enough to throw temper tantrums at Mega-Mart.
“That is, like, so lame, y’all,” she said, wrapping her gum around her finger and then feeding it back into her mouth. Nathan wondered why she used the word “y’all” when there was only him in the car. He wondered if she knew it was supposed to be used when referring to more than one person. Then again, grammar was probably not her strong suit.
Out of the corner of his eye, Nathan saw a tan furry blur: Dante’s pet of the month, a French bulldog named Pinky. It barked loudly from its seat, and started bouncing up and down and trying to scratch off its tiny pink sweater. Nathan wasn’t an animal person.
“That dog had its shots?” he asked Dante.
“Are y’all policemen types always so much fun?” Dante asked. Nathan was surprised she actually grasped the concept of sarcasm. He said nothing, and she crossed her arms and stared out the window. The only sound for thirty seconds was her snapping gum.
Nathan didn’t care if he was being rude. Having her quiet was a nice change of pace from her babbling on about Corey Bennett, like she had since the airport. Apparently, she was under the impression that he cared about how excited she was to meet him.
In Devil’s in the Details, Corey Bennett plays a washed-up bull rider who falls in love with a diner waitress played by Dante and then one—or both, Nathan couldn’t remember—sells their soul to the devil to find love, or some such nonsense. He couldn’t be bothered to keep up with the details. He did remember there was a rumor circulating that Dante initially took the script because she thought she’d be playing Flo from Alice and could get to say the line “Kiss my grits.”
“Have you seen Corey Bennett, y’all?” she’d asked Nathan the minute she got into the car. “I mean, like, oh my God, he is, like, such a freakin’ fox! I mean, if I was planning on losing my virginity soon, which I am, like, totally not, I would so give it up to him, you know? Of course, he has a girlfriend, that actress Jennifer what’s her name, and I’m not a boyfriend stealer. I’m just saying that he is h-o-t, hot, you know?”
Nathan, who was almost at a loss for words, just stared at Dante London and told her to fasten her seat belt.
Now Nathan’s radio crackled to life on his dashboard, and Robbie’s unmistakable voice came through.
“Nathan? Do you copy? Ten-four.”
No matter how often Nathan tried to tell Robbie not to call him directly on the radio (to instead go through Ann) or to use his name on the air, Robbie just didn’t bother to do as he was told. It took an extra step on his part, and extra steps were not something Robbie was going to do. If you got one step out of him that was a miracle.
“Call dispatch. Ten-four,” Nathan said into the CB. He couldn’t keep the annoyance from his voice. He was pretty sure Robbie was just trying to find out what was happening with Dante London. He’d made it no great secret he was a fan. It was one of many reasons why Nathan had refused his request to escort the pop princess himself.
“Dispatch told me to stop bugging her and talk to you, uh, ten-four.”
Great, now even Ann was working against him. “Go ahead, ten-four.”
“You sure you don’t need backup with Red Dress, over?” Robbie said. Red Dress was the code name for Dante London, as in Devil in a Red Dress.
“No,” Nathan said for the millionth time. “And if that’s all, I need to get back to work.”
“No, that’s not all,” Robbie said. “I was calling to tell you that Mel is out at Mae Kenneth’s place. Constance Plyd is there and she had some kind of seizure or something. Mae called nine-one-one.”
Nathan felt his stomach tighten. “Is she okay?”
Next to him, Pinky the Dog barked fast three times.
“Mel says yes, but if you want me to check on her, I will.”
“I’ll do it. I’m nearly done here.” And with that, Nathan hit the gas, sending Dante hard against her seat and Pinky the Bulldog soundly against her lap.
TWELVE
Finally,” Shadow said, as he and Yaman watched Mel come and revive Constance. They had watched the vision unfold in her head, a perk of being a demon. They could see visions, but only if they were watching the prophet at the time.
“Told you she was the real deal.”
“Well, can’t blame me for doubting,” Shadow said. “Took her long enough to get around to one.”
“So, Dante London? Not a bad choice,” Yaman commented, tapping the People magazine in his own hand.
“Well, she’s better than a goat, that’s for sure.”
“It’s perfect, really, when you think about it. Slutty virgin—just up Satan’s alley.”
“I bet you’re going to tell me she’s one of your turns.”
“No, actually,” Yaman said. “You know the mother of the Antichrist can’t be a turn. She’s got to be pure—at least, in the beginning.”
“Guess I forgot that part,” Shadow said.
“Well, it’s hard to remember details when you’re busy eating everything in sight.” A big gust of wind blew then and Yaman grabbed the brim of his black baseball cap to keep it from blowing off.
Shadow nodded to the cap. “What’s with the cap? You losing your hair?”
Yaman’s hands went reflexively up to his head. “Why do you say that?”
“You and the baseball cap. I thought only guys who were losing their hair wore those.”
“Ever heard of Ashton Kutcher?”
“Even I know the trucker hat thing is way over.”
“Well, whatever, I’m not losing my hair.”
“Why don’t you show me, then?”
“I will not.”
“You are totally going bald!”
“Am not!”
“There’s always Hair Club for Men,” Shadow said, and burst out laughing. “A bald Pride demon—oh, that’s ironic.”
“Would you shut up? Plenty of sexy guys are bald. Like Bruce Willis.” Yaman held up a copy of People magazine to show the tiny picture of Bruce Willis in the upper left corner.
“Right, that’s why all the movie stars who sell their souls don’t immediately ask for a full head of hair first off.”
“Let’s just go find the general and report what we saw,” Yaman said. “Then we wait for more orders.”
“Says the demon who doesn’t like to follow them.”
“Well, we have to at least get them first and then we’ll see if we follow them or not.”
“Whatever you say—Baldie,” Shadow said.
“Watch it,” Yaman said. “I could completely annihilate you.”
“Oh, I’m sure.”
“You doubt me?”
“Well, I’m not too scared of Pride demons. You guys are always too busy arranging your hair to fight properly. Or, in your case, hiding the fact you don’t have any.”
“Argh, I have hair—I told you! And I can kick serious butt,” Yaman said. “I killed the prophet’s husband, remember?”
“Yeah, like a total sissy. One stab wound with a screwdriver?”
“It was what was handy, and one stab wound was all I needed. I’m efficient.”
“Or you’re just squeamish.”
“Hey, I let go a world of hurt on Joan.”
“Of Arc? You killed her?”
“Yep,” Yaman said. “Who do you think lit the stake she was burned at?”
“Bet you had a lot more hair then,” Shadow said.
“Oh, that’s it, I give up,” Yaman growled. “Are you coming or not? We have to go see General Asmodeus.”
