Eric appeared to consider it.
“Okay,” he said finally. “I belong to a . . . uh . . . secret society. We fight a secret enemy.”
“What, like a gang?”
“No,” said Eric. “We fight demons.”
“Demons?” said little Jonah, half skeptical, half scared out of his wits.
“Yeah. They’re all over California. By day, they’re normal guys. Accountants and basketball players, stuff like that. But at night they peel off their skin and go hunting kids. Under-tens.”
“Under-tens? Like me.”
“Like you. Exactly like you. I found these demons chewing on a couple of twin girls. Maybe eight years old. I killed most of ’em, but a few must’ve followed me home. We gotta stay real quiet and they’ll go away.”
Jonah rushed for the phone. “We should call Mom.”
“No!” said Eric, snatching the phone. “You want to get Mom killed? Is that what you want?”
The idea of his mother dying started Jonah crying. “No. Mom can’t die.”
“Exactly,” Eric said gently. “You gotta leave the demon-slaying to me and my boys. When you’re fifteen, then you get to be sworn in, but until then, this is our secret. You stay in the house and let me do my duty. Promise?”
Jonah nodded, blubbering too much to say the word.
And so the brothers sat huddled on the sofa while Eric’s girlfriend’s boyfriend’s brothers battered on the windows and called him out.
This is a cruel trick, Eric thought. Maybe I’ll just let it run for a couple of months. It’ll keep the kid out of trouble until everything dies down.
The deception worked well. Jonah didn’t set foot outside the house after dusk for weeks. He sat on the couch with his knees drawn to his chin, waiting for Eric to return with elaborate demon-slaying stories. Every night he feared that his brother would not return, that the demons would kill him.
One night his fears came to pass. The cops said that Eric had been killed by a notorious gang of brothers who had been gunning for him. Something about a girl. But Jonah knew different. He knew the demons had done it. They had peeled off their faces and killed his brother.
* * *
So Jonah Lee, now known as Billy Kong, was going in to see Holly, carrying the weight of his childhood memories. For the sake of his sanity, he had managed to convince himself over the decades that there were no demons, and that his beloved brother had lied to him. This betrayal had messed him up for years, preventing him from forming lasting relationships, and making it a lot easier for him to hurt people. And now this crazy Minerva girl was paying him to help her to hunt down actual demons, and it turns out they were real. He had seen them with his own eyes.
At this stage, Billy Kong couldn’t tell fact from fiction. A part of him believed that he had had a bad accident, and that all of this was coma hallucinations. All Billy knew for sure was that if there was the slightest chance that these demons were the same ones who’d killed Eric, then they were going to pay. It was revenge he was after.
Holly was not too happy playing the victim. She’d had enough of that in the Academy. Every time the curriculum had thrown up a role-playing game, Holly, as the only girl in that class, had been picked to be the hostage, or the elf walking home alone, or the teller facing a bank robber. She’d tried to object that this was stereotyping, but the instructor had replied that stereotypes were stereotypes for a reason, and get that blond wig on. So when Artemis proposed that she allow herself to get caught, Holly had taken a bit of persuading. Now she was tied to a wooden chair in a dark damp basement room, waiting for some human to come and torture her. The next time Artemis had a plan involving someone being taken hostage, he could play the part himself. It was ridiculous. She was a captain in her eighties and Artemis was a fourteen-year-old civilian, and yet he was dishing out the orders and she was taking them.
That’s because Artemis is a tactical genius, said her sensible side.
Oh, shut up, her irritated side responded eloquently.
And then Billy Kong came into the room and proceeded to irritate Holly even further. He glided across the floor like a pale, hair-gelled ghost, circling Holly silently several times before speaking.
“Tell me something, demon. Can you peel off your face?”
Holly met his eyes. “With what? My teeth? Hands tied, moron.”
Billy Kong sighed. Lately, everyone under five feet seemed to think it was their prerogative to give him verbal abuse.
“You probably know I’m not supposed to kill you,” said Billy, teasing his hair into spikes. “But I often do things that I’m not supposed to.”
Holly decided to crack this human’s confidence a little.
“I know that, Billy, or should I say, Jonah. You’ve done a lot of bad things over the years.”
Kong took a step back. “You know me?”
“We know all about you, Billy. We’ve been watching you for years.”
This wasn’t strictly true, of course. Holly knew no more about Kong than what Foaly had told her. Perhaps she wouldn’t have baited him if she’d known about his demon history.
To Billy Kong, this simple statement was confirmation of everything Eric had told him. Suddenly the building blocks of his beliefs and understandings toppled and smashed beyond repair.
It was all true. Eric had not lied. Demons walked the earth, and his brother had tried to protect him and paid with his life.
“You remember my brother?” he asked, his voice shaking.
Holly presumed that this was a test. Foaly had mentioned a brother.
“Yes. I remember. Derek, wasn’t it?”
Kong pulled a stiletto knife from his breast pocket, gripping it so tightly his knuckles whitened.
“Eric!” he shouted, spittle spraying from his mouth. “It was Eric! Do you remember what happened to him?”
Holly suddenly felt nervous. This Mud Man was unstable. It would only take her a second to escape from these bonds, but maybe a second was too long. Artemis had requested that she remain bound for as long as possible, but from the look on Billy Kong’s face, it seemed that staying bound could be a fatal mistake.
“Do you remember what happened to my brother?” asked Kong again, waving the knife like a conductor’s baton.
“I remember,” said Holly. “He died. Violently.”
Kong was thunderstruck. Reeling internally. For several moments he circled the room muttering to himself, which didn’t comfort Holly any.
“It’s true. Eric never betrayed me! My brother loved me. He loved me and they took him!”
Holly took advantage of this lack of focus to escape from the plastic ties binding her wrists. She did this using an old LEP trick taught to her by Commander Vinyáya back in the Academy. She rubbed her wrists against the rough edge, causing two small grazes. When magical sparks erupted from her fingertips to heal the wounds, she siphoned off a few to melt the plastic, enough for her to yank her way out.
When Kong faced Holly again, she was untethered, but concealing the fact.
Kong knelt before her so their eyes were level. He was blinking rapidly, and his pulse beat in a temple vein. He spoke slowly, in a voice fraught with barely repressed madness and violence. He had switched to Taiwanese, his family’s first language.
“I want you to peel off your face. Right now.”
This, reasoned Kong, would be the final proof. If this demon could peel off her face, then he would stab her in the heart and damn the consequences.
“I can’t,”said Holly.“My hands are tied. Why don’t you peel it off for me? We have new masks now. Disposable. They come off easily.”
Kong coughed in surprise, rocking back on his hunkers. Then he steadied himself and reached out shaking hands. His hands did not shake from fear, but from anger and sorrow that he had dishonored his brother’s memory by believing the worst of him.
“At the hairline,” said Holly. “Just grab and pull. Don’t worry if you tear it.”
Kong
looked up, and they made eye contact. This was all Holly needed to employ the magical fairy mesmer.
“Don’t those arms feel heavy?” she asked, her voice layered and irresistible.
Kong’s brow suddenly creased, and the creases filled with sweat.
“My arms. What? They’re like lead. Like two lead pipes. I can’t . . .”
Holly pushed the mesmer a little harder. “Why don’t you put them down. Take it easy. Sit on the floor.”
Kong sat on the concrete. “I’m just going to sit for a second. We’re still doing the face-peeling thing. But in a second. I’m tired.”
“You probably feel like talking.”
“You know what, demon. I feel like talking. What should we talk about?”
“This whole group you’re involved with, Billy. The Paradizos. Tell me about them.”
Kong snorted.“The Paradizos! You’re only dealing with one Paradizo here. And that’s the girl, Minerva. Her daddy is just a money man. If Minerva wants it, Gaspard pays for it. He’s so proud of his little girl the genius that he does whatever she says. Can you believe that she convinced him to keep the whole demon thing quiet until after the Nobel council gets a look at her research?”
This was very good news. “You mean that no one outside this house knows about the demons?”