The Book of Bart Read online

  Huh? What?

  I burst out laughing. “Surely you jest.”

  She grinned and pointed at me. “That’s it. You’re jealous. It makes total sense. You never had a mom to hug you and tell you she loved you, or tell you to stop acting like a brat. Now I’m here, and what do you know? The demon finds out he likes being treated this way.”

  I waved her off. “Hush, you. Go home. You have no idea what, or who, I am. What I’ve done. You can’t possibly understand.”

  Sam laughed. “I understand. I understand men always want what they can’t have. Or in your case, never had.”

  My horns pushed against my skull. This almost-angel talked about things way above her pay grade. “Samantha, if I wanted you, I would take you.”

  I rolled up the window and sped off before she had a chance to respond.

  I needed a new car. Yes, the damage to the exterior could be fixed, but the interior would always have a barf-like stench from now on, which I refused to tolerate.

  I called Quincy on Saturday morning to help me pick out a new ride. Without him, if I strolled into a Mercedes dealership and tried to buy a car myself, they’d probably assume I was a drug dealer and call the cops. I had the car towed to the dealership, so it would be there for trade-in, though I’d probably get twenty-five cents and a slice of bacon for the car, if I was lucky.

  Quincy’s face looked flushed when he picked me up. He seemed preoccupied. We didn’t exchange a word as he got on the Interstate. He kept tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, like he tried to speak in Morse code.

  I couldn’t take the silent treatment any longer. It gave me goose bumps. “Are you okay? You haven’t even asked why I’m buying a new car so soon after getting out of Hell.”

  He stared blankly at the road ahead. “Yeah. Um, sorry. Why are you?”

  The man didn’t seem to be in the same zip code as me, let alone the same car. “What’s up with you? Are you on meth?”

  Quincy shook his head. “Long night.”

  Bull. I know a crackhead when I see one.

  “You and the missus have too much fun with the whippets again?”

  A quiet laugh escaped him. “That’s it.”

  Something seemed off about him. I didn’t know what, but something. Quincy typically bitched up a storm when he did a job for me, trying to find some sneaky way to alter our contract to his advantage. I snapped my fingers at him. “Seriously. Are you all there today?”

  “Sure,” he said, glancing over at me. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  It was the first thing he’d said that sounded like he had full command of his faculties.

  We pulled into the Mercedes dealership. A salesman greeted us within thirty seconds of parking. His greased-back hair and deep Southern accent was typical for a car dealer in this area of the country.

  “I’m Stan. How can I help you two gentlemen?” he boomed. “It’s a beautiful day for a new Mercedes.”

  “Uh…” Quincy stammered.

  My gaze locked on a black S65 AMG. “We had my dad’s old Benz towed in earlier today. Some hooligans got hold of it and went for a joyride. Did some unmentionable things to it.”

  Things I’m going to convince myself never happened.

  Stan touched his hair with the tip of his finger, like he wanted to scratch an itch without messing up his greasy hair. “Yeah, I saw. They sure tore the heck out of that thing. Did a wild boar jump on the roof or something?”

  “Wish I knew.” I wished a wild boar had done this. An animal would’ve been easier to dispose of, and my jacket wouldn’t have been soiled by minion goo. I pointed at the S65. “Can we take that for a test drive? Dad figures now is as good a time as any for a new car.”

  I talked Stan into letting me drive, saying that my “father” let me drive the car as much as he did.

  “So the Benz will pretty much be like both of ours,” I said.

  Stan cocked an eyebrow. “You must have some skills to be able to handle a performance vehicle like this.”

  I smirked. “You have no idea.”

  Stan let me take the car out on the Beltline. I drove eighty-five miles per hour, weaving in and out of the lanes. Poor Stan looked so terrified I could practically see his life flashing before his eyes.

  “Son, you do realize you break it, you buy it,” he said.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t break it. But we’re still buying it.”

  “Thank the good Lord in Heaven,” Stan said. I glanced over and saw him cross himself. I tried not to laugh at him.

  The S65 had me more excited than a room full of virgins unsure about their sexuality. With six hundred and twenty-one horsepower, how could I not get excited? So what if it cost over two hundred grand? I’d been flush with cash ever since I took part in the sacking of Rome and made off with a few tons of gold and marble statues of naked women. The statues I’d sold to museums for a nice fortune, and the gold… well, I just kept that bit of information to myself. I will say that my stash would make a pirate jealous.

  I had Quincy write a check for Stan, who may or may not have wet himself during the test drive. Fortunately, I didn’t come across any nasty salesman urine in the car.

  After filling out all the paperwork and I officially owned the car, I invited Quincy over to my place for a celebratory drink and to discuss what kind of favor he’d like me to do in exchange for helping me get a new car so quickly. He accepted.

  It took me no time at all to drive home in my new Benz, which I’d decided to name Sweet Claudette, mainly because I’d never driven a sweet girl called Claudette the way I drove this car.

  Quincy still had a dazed look as he walked into my condo a full ten minutes after I did.

  He slumped down on the couch, staring at the wall. I poured us both a shot of Cognac. I handed the man his and sat across from him in my loveseat.

  “Cheers,” I said, holding up the glass. I downed my drink in one smooth swallow.

  Quincy held onto his, still staring at the wall. I could’ve understood his fascination if there were a nude portrait of myself hanging up there, but nothing graced that wall.

  “Okay. No more games,” I said. “What are you on? You chasing the dragon?”

  He stood and walking over to the wall, running his hand over the plaster. “I never told you,” he said, still sounding like he was away with the fairies and not in my living room. “I met your teacher.”

  “Which one?”

  “Miss Evans. They forgot to have me sign some paperwork when I enrolled you. I went back later that day and met her.”

  Miss Evans. Of course. Any man who met that creature would want to talk about it. “Lovely lady, isn’t she?”

  Quincy smiled, like he performed some sort of automated reaction. The rest of his face didn’t follow suit. It looked creepy. “Very.”

  What was going on with him? I stood up and moved closer to him. “Quin, you―”

  He snatched up the remote and the television sprang to life.

  “TV? You trying to watch a stoner movie?”

  Quincy turned the television to the religious channel and thumbed up the volume, negating a good bit of my tolerance. One of the televangelists preached about a time he volunteered at a food bank and some other happy junk. The man’s voice made it feel like spikes pierced my brain. I grunted. I needed to figure out a way to block that channel.

  “Turn it off.”

  Quincy smirked as he turned the sound all the way up. At normal volumes, I can handle the onslaught of televangelism, but I still hadn’t figured out how to handle high volumes. At this level, the fake preaching felt like a handful of grenades exploding in my head. My horns pushed against my skull, begging to come out. I fell to the floor, squeezing my head between my hands, as if that would ease the pain.

  Quincy pulled out a wooden knife he’d been hiding behind his back as he stood above me. He got down on one knee, held the knife up, then brought it down as hard as he could. I raised my arm to shield my face and jerk
ed my body to the side just enough that he missed my head and got my arm instead. The puncture wound burned, like he’d injected holy water into me. My entire arm went numb. That knife must’ve been carved out of wood from a crucifix. How had he gotten his hands on that?

  I rolled across the floor away from him, the knife still lodged in my arm.

  “I have to do this,” he said.

  My awesome ninja rolling maneuver brought me conveniently close to the big screen. I hit the power button, bringing me instant relief from that televangelist’s rambling.

  “Who wants me dead? Miss Evans?” I asked, getting to my feet. That didn’t make any sense. Unless… maybe we were closer to the truth than any of us realized?

  Quincy lunged for me. I tried to push him away, but he grabbed the knife’s handle and pulled, trying to get it out of my arm. The blade rubbed against bone. Not fun. I headbutted him before he could do it again and he staggered back, holding his head.

  Quincy screamed and ran toward me. I yanked the knife out of my arm. It burned my hand. I stabbed him in the neck with it. Momentum carried his body headfirst into the wall, where his head lodged as the life drained from him.

  I stared at Quincy, bent over with his head stuck in my wall. What in Heaven had Miss Evans done to make him go off the reservation like this? I pulled him out of the wall and let his body fall backward onto the floor. His face was frozen in shock, like some post-modern take on Edvard Munch.

  This wasn’t like Casey’s possession. The Black Cloud of Death consumed his body, using it like a puppet. Someone placed Quincy under a curse of some sort, like a high level hypnotism. Quincy’s blood had slinked down the wall. Great. Now I had to repaint the walls.

  How did Miss Evans fit into all of this? Sure, the woman looked sickeningly hot, but that―

  It smacked me in the face like an angry mother’s hand.

  The Charm of Agrippina. When I wore it around Miss Evans, I felt almost ambivalent to her. But when I didn’t have the stupid thing on, the need to have her almost drove me mad with desire. Somehow, Miss Evans was the key to this entire thing. Could she be Vixen?

  I found my cellphone on the floor and called Sam. For some reason, Josh answered.

  “Where’s Sam? I need to talk to her now.”

  “What do you need? She’s busy,” Josh said.

  “I got the sudden urge to volunteer at an animal shelter.”

  “Are you serious?”

  I held the phone away from my ear for a moment. “No, you dolt. I need you two to get over here as soon as possible. No more questions. Just get in the car and drive.”

  Surviving all these attempts on my life made me feel like Tony Soprano, except much better looking.

  Josh laughed. “Big bad demon needs some help?”

  “Didn’t I save your mortal ass last night?”

  Josh stayed silent on the other end.

  “That’s what I thought.” I walked into my bedroom and opened the dresser. I got an undershirt and wrapped it around my knife wound. A little sensation came back to my arm, along with a touch of excruciating pain. “Just get over here. And bring some tarp.”

  “Tarp? Did you kill somebody or something?”

  I didn’t have time for this. If I said yes, he’d probably call the cops on me. “Clock’s ticking. Move it.”

  I ended the call and dialed Remy.

  “Yo,” he said. “I think I have a line on that thing you asked me about.”

  “Excellent.” If Sam couldn’t get hold of more healing ointment, Remy probably would be able to. “I need something else now, too.”

  Remy sighed. “I know we go back a ways, but you’re pushing it, Bartholomew.”

  I told him what I needed. He didn’t say anything for a bit.

  “Let me double check, but I think you can get whatever you want at this place I’m sending you to.”

  I thanked him and hung up. I went back into the living room and stood over Quincy’s body. I didn’t want him lying around here, stinking up the place until nightfall. He had to be disposed of ASAP. I yanked the knife out of his neck.

  “Have fun down below,” I said.

  I placed the knife in the sink and set about thinking of the best way to get him out of here. Things were so much easier in the old days. Just put an arrow, axe, bullet, whatever, through someone’s head, dump them in the middle of nowhere, and people would assume Indians, barbarians, or thieves did in the person. Thanks to the invention of investigative tools, it was pretty much impossible to hide anything anymore. Sure, the new technology helped diminish people’s belief in the Almighty, which couldn’t have made me happier, but that sure as Heaven didn’t do me any good at the moment.

  Thirty minutes later, Josh knocked at my door.

  “Where’s Sam?” I asked.

  “She went to get the tarp and asked me to go on without her,” he said, moving past me. He looked a bit shiny around the edges, like he’d been sweating. He saw Quincy’s body and froze. His jaw seemed to jut out as he focused his gaze on me.

  “This was your big emergency? You really did kill someone?”

  “Basically, but it’s not that simple. He tried to kill me first.”

  Josh knelt down next to Quincy and closed his eyes. He muttered some sort of prayer that made me a little nauseous. Not that it would’ve helped Quincy, who was probably being processed by Hell at this very moment.

  “Amen,” he said, finishing the prayer. “I’d ask you how it happened, but I know you’d only lie.”

  “You might be surprised.”

  “I doubt it.” He ran his finger around Quincy’s knife wound. “Where’s the weapon?”

  “In the sink.” I held up my arm. “If you’ll notice, he attacked me first. With a weapon carved from the wood of a crucifix.”

  “Maybe you stabbed yourself after the fact to hide your guilt.”

  “That could not be more convoluted.”

  Josh walked over to the sink and picked up the knife, twirling the blade around in his hand.

  “So I’m thinking the easiest way to get rid of the body is fake a suicide note, then take him up to the roof and toss him off,” I said. “The impact should take care of the rest.”

  Josh stared at the knife. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “We can’t call the cops, if that’s what you’re thinking. I stopped paying them when I got put away.” My cell rang. Sam. “How far away are you?”

  “Maybe a few minutes? I got the tarp.”

  I glanced over at Josh, who remained fixated on the knife. The scene did not make me feel warm and fuzzy.

  “Get here as fast as you can.” I didn’t have time to end the call before Josh rushed at me and tried to bury the knife in my gut. I jumped to the side, barely missing the blade. “And here I thought you’d promised to be a good boy.”

  Josh smirked. “You murdered someone. The deal is off.”

  He lashed at me, making me trip over the coffee table.

  I grabbed his hand with both of mine to keep the knife from stabbing me and let my claws come out. I dug them into Josh’s wrist, making him grunt in pain. He punched me in the face with his free hand. Laughing, I threw him off me and across the coffee table with all the strength I could muster. I got on top of him before he could react.

  “You really think a normal fist can hurt me?” I straddled him and pinned his hands to the floor. If someone walked in and saw us without knowing the context of the situation, they would’ve wondered if we were shooting a porno.

  “Get off me.”

  “Do you want to die?” I asked. “Do you? Because I’m more than happy to oblige you if you do.”

  “Go to Hell,” Josh spat on my face.

  “Really?” The spit dripped down my chin.

  “Demon scum.”

  My horns pushed against my skull. When it came to people trying to kill me, I drew the line at one a day. I grabbed the knife and wrested it from his grip. The blade dug into my hand and burn
ed. Better than it digging into my chest and obliterating me. Josh struggled to free himself, but my demon strength kept him in place. I held the knife against his throat.

  Sam burst through the door, tarp in hand, a wide-eyed look on her face.

  “Josh.” She stopped when she saw that I’d turned the tables. I figured she also saw Quincy’s dead body when she shouted “Oh, God.” The tarp fell to the floor as she covered her face with her hands. “What have you done?”

  I tilted my head toward Quincy. “I can explain. It wasn’t my fault.”

  “He’s lying.” Josh said, with only a slight hint of venom. “Send him back to Hell.”

  I nodded at Josh. “This one decided to get in on the act. Clearly it didn’t work. Now I’m trying to decide if I want to kill him too.”

  “Don’t,” Sam said. “Please. You know what it means.”

  I did, but part of me didn’t care. So much bullshit flew around this whole thing, I just wanted it to end. Yes, an eternity of being Lucifer’s butt-buddy would suck, and having to listen to Wolfie Hitler’s chatting would grate on my last nerve, but putting a snot-nosed little kid like Josh six feet under for trying to get the better of me meant I’d at least go to my punishment with a smile on my face. I might even be able to talk Lucifer into getting him sent down with me.

  Sam inched closer to me, her hands outstretched. “Bartholomew, I know you did what you did to Quincy out of self-defense. You know how I know?”

  “How?”

  She got down on her knees next to me. “Because nobody from Hell is breaking down your door to take you away. I’m the only one here. Nobody else. And I know you wouldn’t keep a knife like that lying around. I also know that if you murder Josh, your parole, or whatever you want to call it, will be off the table.”

  She inched her hands closer to me.

  “Do not use your little Hand of God thing on me!”

  “Don’t give me a reason to.”

  I slowly pulled the knife away from Josh’s throat and handed it to Sam, who sat back and looked up at the ceiling, probably to thank the Big Jerk-off.

  Josh shoved me to the side so he could stand up. He wiped the sweat from his face. “One day, demon. My father will be avenged.”