Raw Power: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Demon-Hearted Book 1) (20 page)

Just as I was considering the rest of my day, I felt a pair of eyes settle on me. Glancing around, I saw they belonged to someone familiar.

It was Joe.

Dressed in a white T-shirt and a pair of camouflage-patterned shorts, he arched a brow. “The hell you doin' out here, Lucy?” He was sitting on the stoop of an old house, turning his silver Zippo between his fingers.

“Joe?” I asked, looking at him as though I doubted he was real. “They let you out already?”

That was when I noticed his arm. Where it'd been a burnt-up mess after the explosion at the warehouse, it looked good as new now. I couldn't even tell he'd been burned, and he flexed his bicep in dramatic fashion to drive the point home. “Hell yeah, they did. And not a moment too soon. Hated being stuck in that fuckin' place. Those nurses there are damned stuck up.” He sniffed the air. “Ol' Mona really brings the goods. When they brought her on I knew it'd all be taken care of.”

I felt a little queasy, recalling the slithering, reptilian form of Mona, but was still impressed by the results. Her treatment had healed Joe completely, and in record time. Despite my having witnessed a number of magical spectacles recently, it still seemed unbelievable. I stared at Joe's arm for a long while, incredulous.

“So, I just wanted to say,” mumbled Joe, making an obvious effort to look past me, “that, uh, I appreciate your comin' to visit me. That was real nice of you, Lucy.” He chuckled a little. “The Veiled Order isn't exactly a regular office job-- I mean, we ain't throwing potlucks and shit. But, you know. That was cool of you.”

“Oh, yeah. No problem, man. Glad you're feeling better.” I glanced at the house whose stoop he was stationed at. It was a two-story thing, brick and pretty shabby. The house was rough around the edges like everything else in this particular block. “What're you doing here?” I asked, nodding at the place.

He shrugged. “Oh, this is my ma's place. Lived here all my life.” He stood up, stretching so that the bottom of his shirt rode up and his fuzzy naval was bared.

“Ah, I see.” I nodded and prepared to make my way down the street. “Well, it's been good seeing you... I'm sure we'll be on the job again soon.”

Joe leaned against the wooden handrail and nodded towards the screen door of the house. “Well now, wait a sec. You, uh... you wanna come in?” He was looking past me again, didn't want to seem too eager. “Maybe get something to eat? Ma's made some awesome spaghetti, if you're into that sorta thing.”

My stomach rumbled audibly, as if “spaghetti” had been some secret code word. The pretzel I'd scarfed down was long-gone by now so that a proper meal sounded mighty fine. “Yeah, sure,” I replied. “That sounds good.”

 
Joe waved me up onto the stoop and opened the door. “Welcome to the
Casa de Joe.
”

TWENTY-EIGHT

 
The
Casa de Joe
was underwhelming in almost every capacity, from the worn-out, 1970's style furniture that filled the place, to the tacky, department store framed art that adorned the walls. I'm one to give credit where credit is due, though, and I've gotta say that the place was impeccably clean.

I mean, seriously. The cleanest house I've ever been in. Joe must've been a stage-five germophobe.

After a short tour through the downstairs, Joe led me into the kitchen. The white linoleum had been laid before I'd even been born, but you never would have known it for the way it shined. I took a seat at the kitchen table and accepted the bottle of cold pilsner he offered me. As he'd promised, there was a big pot of steaming spaghetti on the stove, and Joe refused all offers of help as he took to plating some for both of us.

Mounds of al dente noodles, copious spoonfuls of meaty marinara and a heaping snowbank of cheese were carried over to me on a plate. “Don't be shy,” he said, grinning. “If it's too much for ya, I'll send you home with a doggy bag.”

“A doggy bag?” I scoffed. “May as well fix me another, wouldn't want you to have to get up twice.”

Joe was thin as a rail, so it came as something of a surprise when he fixed himself a plate of equal proportions to mine. He set it down on the table and took a few moments to adjust his well-sculpted pompadour. Then, settling into his chair, he closed his eyes and lowered his head in a brief prayer. He caught me snickering as I started into my food and shot me a dirty look as he finished. “Shut up,” he said, grabbing his fork and twirling up a giant mass of noodles. “It's an old habit. Makes the food go down easier.”

Damn. Here was Joe, a mouthy greaser who made his living playing with fire and hunting witches, but he still had time to play dinner host and even say grace before eating. He was a good kid, in the traditional sense, and I'd been unprepared for this level of earnestness from my usually shit-talking host.

I kid you not, the spaghetti he served me was the best I've ever tasted. Don't you dare tell my Italian grandmother that, else she'd run me out of town, but Joe's mother's cooking was out of this world. Perfectly prepared and masterfully seasoned. Apparently he thought so too, because for a long while the two of us just sat there and dug in noisily, like two hungry animals.

When we'd plowed through most of our food, things slowed down a little and we started chatting. I asked him a bit about how long he'd been involved with the Veiled Order, but wasn't prepared for the disclosure that followed.

“Been hanging around the Veiled Order about two years now,” said Joe, pausing to think. The corners of his mouth were marked with sauce, which he deftly cleared away with a napkin. “A few years before that was when I got really good at the whole, uh...” He whipped out his lighter and gave it a spin. “You know.”

Mulling over a mouthful of pilsner, I nodded. “How'd you get started? Playing with fire, I mean.”

He sat back in his chair, grinning and apparently lost in reverie. “Always liked fire. Played with firecrackers a lot as a kid and almost blew my hands off one Fourth of July. Ma would get after me for stealing her lighters, for starting little fires in the yard.” He shrugged. “The fire just called to me.” Joe gave his bottle a little swish and then emptied it. Grabbing two more from the fridge, he set one bottle in front of me and then continued. “I was in high school when I realized I had a knack for manipulating flames. Scared the shit out of me, first time I did it. Thought I was going crazy, or that I was demon-possessed.” He backtracked a moment, stammering. “I m-mean not that there's, like, anything wrong with demons n' all that.”

“No offense taken,” I replied.

Joe went on. “So, yeah, I started practicing. Got to be so that I could focus and manipulate the shape of a flame. Could make it move, spread, whatever. It was just my own personal project. Never learned how it all worked until I joined the Order and had Kubo spell it out for me. I'd just play around with it in my room, do it at parties, you know. Fuckin' around, never taking it seriously. But then, I got to be so comfortable around fire that I could make it do stuff without thinking. That's when things got out of control. Started getting into trouble with it, drawing attention to myself.” He licked his lips. “The Veiled Order caught on. 'Stead of locking me up, though, they offered me a job.”

“Huh.” Slurping up a stray noodle, I asked him another question. “So, what do your parents think about your, uh... gift?”

Joe held up one finger. “Parent, singular,” he said. “Dad's outta the picture. Heard he died in jail some years back. I've lived in this house with ma my whole life. And she doesn't know a thing about the pyromancy. I wanna keep it that way.” He snickered. “She thinks I work in a cubicle some place. Helps that Mr. Kubo drops by, lookin' real sharp in his suits, to pick me up now and then for jobs.”

The taste of marinara on my tongue was a little less sweet, just then. “Sorry about your dad,” I said. “Must've been hard, growing up with just your mom.” It was an awkward thing to say, but under the circumstances I didn't really know where to take the conversation. Silence, probably, would have been better.

Joe's dark eyes crinkled in the corners, as did his nose, like he'd just smelt something foul. “Nah,” he said after a small gulp of beer. “It's not a big deal. Me and ma do all right for ourselves. She doesn't get around so good these days. Upstairs sleeping, in fact. But we never needed his help. I take care of things around here, clean up and pay the mortgage.” He motioned to the stove. “She keeps the food comin'!” Joe laughed, then patted his stomach. “And you? How long you been living 'round here? What's your story, Lucy?”

I pursed my lips.

Well, my story was a fair bit rosier than his, for starters.

As I started talking about my own past, I have to admit I felt like shit. As I'm sure you're aware, I like to bitch and complain about things. Discussing my relatively stable and pleasant upbringing made me realize just how privileged I was, and how little I had to complain about, especially to someone like Joe.

Unlike Joe, I didn't grow up in a rough part of town, or with only a single parent. I grew up in the suburbs, in a decent little house, on a street where we knew all of our neighbors and I could ride my bike without the fear of getting roughed up. My parents had split up years back, but my brother Conrad and I had still seen them both plenty, dividing our time between their homes. Unlike Joe, my dad had always been in the picture, his biggest sin being that he was a little too obsessed with collecting model railroad stuff.

Not that I told Joe any of that.

“My parents split up when I was young. I had a brother, but, uh, he died about ten years ago. I've lived around Detroit all my life. Went to college, got a Master's degree in Art History, but...” I chuckled. “Never could find a good job with it. College was fun, but I ended up with a whole lot of debt for it.” Shrugging, I squeezed the beer bottle, watching the liquid swish around inside. “You ever go to school? To college, I mean?”

Joe guffawed. “Hell, nah. Dropped out of high school in my senior year, matter of fact. College was way too expensive, and even then ma wasn't doing so well around the house, so I decided I'd stay put and help her out with things. Never cared much for school.”

“Ah...” Goddamn, I felt like a heel. Joe seemed like a genuinely good guy. He cared about this mother, had dropped out of school to work and support her, and here I was, complaining about how much debt I'd racked up pursuing a worthless college degree. I probably looked like a spoiled brat to him.

“What'd you do before you joined up?” he asked. “You said your degree didn't open any doors, so what'd you do before this?”

“Oh,” I said, cracking a grin. “I was kind of a debt collector. A repo man.” I took a swig of my pilsner and rambled on like a fucking idiot. “Initially I worked with this local debt agency. Knocking on doors, collecting delinquent debts. You know, getting in people's faces and making 'em cough up the goods. Did real well at that, until I started working for that guy, Amundsen, who's a member of the Order. I collected stolen goods for him and his rich buddies under the table. Shook guys down and beat 'em senseless. Not so different from what I did during the debt collection days, except the pay was much better. Lot of people in this city who can't pay their bills. Putting a scare in them is easy, and I got to be pretty good with my fists because of it.” I was beaming with pride as I recalled my exploits, and I couldn't have possibly been more tone deaf for it.

“I see,” said the ordinarily talkative Joe, apparently at a loss for words. He squirmed in his chair, apparently uncomfortable. And suddenly I understood why. Joe didn't live in a great part of town, and both he and his mother had probably known financial troubles over the years. People like him, who'd been down on their luck, had made up my clientele in those days. Hell, I felt pretty sure that my work had taken me to this very neighborhood not so long ago. I'd probably collected debts from people living just a couple of doors down.

Joe continued, his tone a little softer than I was used to hearing from him. “I hope you don't mind me saying this,” he began, “but why would you do that kinda work? I mean, if you didn't have to?” He paused. “It sounds kind of nasty, coming after people who can't pay their bills, you know? A guy like you has a degree, could have done any number of things for cash. Why, uh... why that? Those bill collectors really do a number on people, ruin their lives, sometimes. And it sounds to me like you sorta liked it.”

The question hit me like a train.

And you know why?

It wasn't just that I felt like a downright idiot for running my mouth in front of Joe, though that was definitely true.

The question affected me so because I'd never given it much thought.

 
I know it's going to be hard for you to believe, but the jobs I'd worked in the past few years, all of which had involved my shaking down people for money and often turning to violence in the process, had been taken on just because. I literally didn't have a reason for doing such work. Joe was right, I could've done any number of jobs instead. Could've earned a more honest living, a living that wasn't dependent on hounding the impoverished, on threatening and harming people to pay back debts with money they didn't have. And then, even though my hunting down stolen art wasn't quite as grimy as the debt collection stuff, I'd come to take entirely too much pride in it. He was absolutely, one-hundred percent correct: It
sounded
like I'd liked it, because I
had
liked it.

That didn't leave me in a very comfortable state of mind.

“I dunno,” I finally answered. And it was the truth. But now that the question was asked, I had no choice but to face the reality of it. It was a question I had to answer, if only for my own sake. Why had I gone for jobs like that?

 
After school, it'd become clear that I couldn't pay off my loans with the crummy degree I'd toiled over for more than six years. Literally, a Masters in Art History was about as useful as toilet paper in this city. The debt collection jobs, well, they weren't real thorough in their selection processes, and there were bonuses offered for those employees who could-- to put it delicately--
consistently perform
in recovering debts.