I caught the bus to Broadway-Layfette from Penn Station and walked the rest of the way. I enjoyed a vast amount of space, able to get a seat with little trouble as people took one look at my bald head and black teeth before moving down the carriage.
I even did a bit of man-spreading. Much to the dismay of my fellow travelers. Their annoyance thrilled me, so I kept widening my legs. Urging the old lady that sat next to me off of her seat.
Served her right. She was rotten to the core. Demons know these things.
Moving a body that was both obese, and ravaged by drugs, was a new experience for me. The inside of my meat-suits ratty parka jacket stank of BO, and I couldn’t stop clearing my throat of phlegm.
I couldn't wait to shed my new body at the first chance I got.
Dirk’s was located in a Pocket Dimension. A separate reality created by a Fold in the fabric of the universe. It was a connection between the Human Realities and another place. Sometimes Folds connected to Purgatory. The Fold above Dirk's led to somewhere else. Located above John’s pizzeria on Bleecker, but non-existent to the human world, saying Dirk’s was a dive was the highest compliment and an under exaggeration.
I walked past the lit-up windows of a restaurant, past the filled tables and gorgeous smells, to the black painted door to the left of the awning. I didn’t bother knocking, I simply opened the door and slipped inside.
Folds only worked if someone had a connection to another Dimension. For example, a Demon could use a Fold because of their relationship to Hell. Fae could use one because of their connection to Faery, and so on. Humans couldn’t see Folds. If a Human were to open the door next to John's, they'd walk into the hallway, leading to the apartments above the restaurant.
License plates on the wall, sticky wood on the bar. Cheap drinks and blood hookahs. Empty of patrons, save from a Redcap in the corner drinking a Bud and an Imp trying to find a song on the jukebox.
No-one stopped me as I walked through the door and strode to the bar. I allowed my eyes to turn to oil-slicks, consuming the whites of my host's eyes. No other Demon had black eyes. It was a Drude thing.
“Dirk wants to see you.” Stan, the bartender, said as I took a stool. He didn’t glance up from the dirty cloth he was using to polish an equally filthy glass.
I pouted. “Can’t I get a drink first?”
“Do not make that expression while wearing that body, baby doll.” He snorted but did not look up once. I wondered how he knew what face I had made.
I exhaled sharply, exasperated, as I swung my legs off the bar to stand. As I made my way around the bar to the office, I put an extra wiggle in my step.
As I rounded the corner, a stranger slipped out of Dirk's office and into the right corridor. He was built. Tall as a tree and just begging to be climbed. His jaw was hard, covered in scruff, and his brow was strong. Dark hair. He walked like a man that knew what he wanted and knew how to get it. Dressed in fatigue pants and a tight black t-shirt that showed enough muscles to bench press a person.
Yum.
His eyes flicked to mine before creasing in disgust. I was mildly offended before I realized that I wore the body of an obese addict, and had allowed my eyes to turn into bottomless pits.
I rubbed my clammy hands down my worn parka. I would have liked to have met Mr. Muscles while wearing something beautiful. Like the body of Arianna Grande, for example.
Mr. Muscles disappeared around the corner. He did not look back. A curious memory and nothing more.
I knocked once on the door marked 'staff' and waited for my Lord and Master to grant me an audience. He must have been really pissed with me because he made me wait ten minutes before he called me through.
Dermot Dirk was a vague man.
Everything about him was indecisive. His body couldn’t decide if it was thin or fat. His hair couldn’t decide what color it was. A mixture of blacks, browns, and blondes swept into a comb-over. His eyes were beady; his belly was round, but his legs were twig-like. He moved like he expected an attack at any second. He gave the impression of a harangued father, with one foot out of the door.
The dude's energy seriously got me down.
I opened the door and slipped inside, making my way to the old sofa in the corner of the dingy office. Dirk didn’t look up from his paperwork to greet me.
I tapped my nicotine-stained fingers against the grubby fabric of my jeans.
“What the Hell are you wearing?” Dirk's southern drawl cut through the silence in the room like a knife through butter.
I shrugged. “All I could find.”
“You couldn’t even wear Tony Salitari for a day without getting into trouble.” Dirk flung his arms out with a sigh. “I needed Tony to stay alive until Mario Russo-Tailor announced he was running for mayor. Which was meant to be tonight.”
I rubbed my temples, right between my skinsuit's monobrow. “You couldn’t have told me this?” I groaned. “You told me I was on vacation!”
“All you needed to do was pretend to be alive, Mara.” Dirk opened his desk drawer and swept a chunk of his papers inside.
I didn't ask how Dermot Dirk knew that Tony Salitari was going to die before he actually did. Just as I didn’t ask why Dirk would want the future mayor of NYC in his pocket.
“You’re a thorn in my side, Drude.”
“You need to give better instructions, Fae.” I held out my hand to survey my nails.
Dirk growled.
“Who was the beefcake that just came out of your office?” I asked, affecting disinterest.
“Your next job.” Dirk crossed his arms over his barrel-like chest.
“Dirk, no,” I whined. “You promised me a vacation.”
“Not my fault you screwed the pooch on that one, Mara.” Dirk’s thin lips tightened. “I can always send you back to Hell if you want?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. I didn’t want to think about what had happened to my Cluster. How my brother’s and sisters—
I sunk back into my chair.
Dirk pushed his rolling chair back and swung around to reach his filing cabinet, all without his ass leaving the seat. He grabbed a file and slapped it onto his desk, the sound muffled by the sheer amount of junk.
I leaned forward, craning my neck to read the front of the file.
“No way.” I shook my head frantically. “Nu-uh. Find someone else.” I knew I couldn’t say no to the job, but I had every intention of letting Dermot Dirk know precisely how much I didn’t want to do it.
Dirk ignored my protests as he licked his finger and flicked through the file to extract a photo.
“Demon Hunters?” I exclaimed. “You’re that desperate for money that you'd sell me to the Hunters?”
“Not everything is about money.”
I snorted. “Rich. Coming from you.”
“The Hunters have petitioned the Fae for help.” Dirk continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “Something is targeting their people. They want an outside opinion.”
He pushed a glossy Polaroid across the table with his index finger. The impassive face of a beautiful brunette stared back at me.
“Frankie Gardiner.” Dirk picked up the photo using only two fingers. He flicked it between his fingers like a playing card. “Twenty-two years old. Promising Hunter. Her squad was attacked. She's in a coma.”
“They want me to extract her memories?”
Dirk shook his head. “She’s a vegetable.” He explained. “Her commanding officer was just here. Warren Davenport, leader of the East Coast branch. He wants someone to go undercover in the unit and find out what happened. He thinks it's an inside job.”