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Description
The anthropomorphic, horned tiger, Bosco, took comfort in certain constants in his life, particularly on a Saturday morning. It took a slight effort to pry the tongue from the roof of his mouth. The sour scent of malt on his breath indicated that he had cleared out a convenience store’s stock of Colt 45. The headache and his aversion to sunlight was common as well, which is why his room was draped in blackout curtains.
Whorish sunlight was better felt, not seen.
He sighed and spread his arms on his flannel bed. Groaning, he yawned and curled his fingers. He cut off his yawn, eyes widening. He did another experimental squeeze, the flesh beneath his palm firm yet soft.
Slowly, he turned his head to the right. A female anthropomorphic goat snoozed next to him, the curving, esoteric symbols on her soft, cinnabar belly and thick hips indicating demonic background. He turned on the lamp on his nightstand and turned his head to the corner of the room.
A giant scythe leaned against the corner, its blade streaked with something dried and red. He got on his fours and crawled to the edge of his bed. All air violently expelled from him. There was an assortment of . . . things on the floor. Things of a cylindrical nature. There was also a paddle. And a crop.
And a life-sized rubber ducky. It stared at him. Judged him.
This was not a constant in his life, but he couldn’t complain. The fact that he had probably gotten laid was a plus, and taking a glance at the lady in his bed, he appreciated her ampleness in the squeeze-friendly areas. Her disheveled mane of ebony hair curtained a somehow comely face as far as goat ladies went.
He was shrugging it off when he noticed something about one of the carnal accoutrements on the floor. One of them, large enough for a loan shark to weaponize, had something attached to it. It was the kind of thing made to adhere to one’s waist, the kind of thing one might consider for the caboose switcheroo.
A strident roar came from the tiger, the goat lady stirring from her sleep. Sitting up, she wiped her crimson eyes and pouted. “The hell are you on about? You screamed more like a bitch than when I was—”
“I DID NOTHING!” Bosco curled to his fours, jade eyes in a panic. He jutted a finger at her. “YOU DID NOTHING! THERE WAS NOTHING!” He glared down at the duck. “STOP GRINNING AT ME!”
The goat lady, Zera, arched an eyebrow. “. . . When I was using your pelvis as my personal crotch trampoline.”
“WHERE ELSE DID YOUR PERFORM YOUR COCK ACROBATICS?”
She sneered at him and held out a clawed hand. “What’s your problem? Why are you acting so . . .?” Her sight drifted to the source of Bosco’s horror. “Oh.”
“OH?” Bosco’s arms stiffened, the thick muscles of his neck striating. “THERE WAS NO ‘OH’! YOU DID ALL THE OH! I HAD NO PART OF— oh dear Jesus on Lady Gaga jet skis what if I oh’ed?”
Zera cocked her head to side and winced. “Well, there was some ‘oh’.”
“Was it the Spaghetti O?” Bosco’s mortified visage intensified. “Play it straight with me— OH GOD, DID I NOT?”
Zera rolled her eyes and crossed her arms in front of breasts. Bosco chanced a glance, noting her jewelry in unconventional places. Zera tapped his chin up to eye level. “If you would calm your fuck in this particular context, I was going to tell you that it wasn’t for you.”
Bosco’s head twitched away from her. Blinking, he said, “Then . . . what about the . . . whips and chains and hand grenades?” He leaned his head at a string of spherical objects on the floor. “A sex bayonet? Was there a pursuit?”
Zera, disbelieving of the tiger’s sober naivete, stretched her neck at him. “I’m not even going to touch on the stark contrast between sober you and drunken Whack-a-Hole you.”
“Did I use the big one on you?”
Zera’s eye twitched. “SUBJECT AT HAND!” Bosco jumped. He was not use to having such anger directed at him. Zera blew out a breath and continued. “It was for the warlock’s wife.”
Bosco winced. “As in for . . . for her.”
“Hole in one, yes,” Zera confirmed. Her eyes roamed to the side. “Two at one point.”
Bosco was taking in a breath of relief when the delayed reaction caught up. “Wait, warlock?”
“Yes,” Zera said, nonplussed. “Wife of a warlock. How drunk were you?”
“Typical amount,” Bosco mumbled.
Zera did a scan of the many empty bottles surrounding his bed. “I think an intensifier is necessary.”
Sheepishly, Bosco looked away from her. “Very drunk.”
“Another.”
“Very-fuck-all-with-all-said-fucks-to-give drunk.”
“That was evident,” Zera said, wincing as she shifted on her rump, lips bunching to the side. “So, you don’t remember that?”
Bosco’s brow furrowed. “No?”
“You don’t remember The Dragon Lush? Saying you needed something done? Something that only someone of my talents and connections could do.”
A jolt of shock went through Bosco’s head, as if someone had put him between a game of Pong. The Dragon Lush, a local bar, was his primary place of employment, the other as an on-call associate of the Deafeners. The Deafeners were an organization created to deal with unruly Echoes: non-humans that sometimes mistook a carnage party as “blowing off steam”.
The events leading up to drunken canoodling must have been during his off-hours, when he wasn’t performing a fist lobotomy on the occasional miscreant. “I said that?”
“You become quite eloquent after the 15th drink or so. You made a compelling case. It was a complete paradigm shift until you reached your 21st.”
“And after that?”
“I’m sore.”
Bosco’s lips thinned. He wished he could remember the events leading up to her current soreness. “Did I—”
“Yes.”
Bosco reeled his head back. “You didn’t let—”
“You did all of it, yes.”
Bosco’s face scrunched in confusion. “So that’s why I’m sore.”
“I’d say the ritual had something to do with it. You have great pain tolerance, too, I might add.”
Bosco chuckled at the compliment. “Well, in my line of work, you have to be able to take a— RITUAL?”
Unfazed, Zera nodded. “Whipped your chest quite a bit too. You still wouldn’t break.”
Bosco, at this point in his muggy endeavor to remember what happened, had to forcefully close his jaw. “Ritual? Whip to the chest? What do you mean . . .” He gasped as he touched his nipple. An irradiated, flaming ram connecting with his pectorals would have been more pleasant. He whimpered, “My soul just died.”
“Yeah, the after-soreness is a bitch. Speaking of souls, you’re not feeling empty or anything, are you?”
Bosco hissed as he attempted to touch the slab of bruise that was currently his chest “E-empty?”
“Well, yeah,” Zera said, crossing her legs and bending her torso to Bosco. The tiger’s eyes involuntarily flicked downward. She had his attention. “You don’t feel as if a part of you was lost, do you? Like you’ve been drained?”
“It’s called a hangover,” Bosco said as he rubbed his face. “Blackouts are bonuses unless I’ve forgotten something about a ritual and the most unhinged carnal exploits I’ve ever— WHAT’S THIS ABOUT MY SOUL?”
Zera chuckled and waved him off. “Don’t worry about it. It meant nothing went wrong with the ritual.”
Bosco’s muzzle met hers, his voice guttural. “What. Ritual?”
She canted her head and smirked. “You’re cute when you’re apoplectic.”
“Stop that!” Bosco said, pointing a finger. He glanced down again. “I think. FEMALE SQUISHY THINGS!” He rolled from his bed and clenched his temples. “CONFUSING ME!”
A knock came from his door. Bosco sprung into the air, legs and arms scrabbling. He landed on his fours, panting. “Tommy?” he shouted. “Tommy, I don’t say this often, but that’d better be you!”
Zera asked, “Who’s Tommy?”
“Lecherous mutt in a trench coat.”
“Sounds like you don’t like him.”
“Best friend. Stay there.” She lowered her head and glowered at him. Bosco added softly, “Please.”
“I’ll take it.”
Bosco scampered out of his bedroom, still on his fours, errant liquor bottles parting and clinking in his wake. He sniffed and bared his fangs. Tommy’s odor was one of marijuana and black cherry Four Loko. The person behind the door smelled nothing like Tommy. He smelled of aftershave and discount cologne.
He smelled like a Steve. Or a Greg.
“Witnesses,” he hissed. He rose and threw open the door.
He was still nude.
The man, whiter than a bleached snowball in a blue button-up shirt and khakis, gave Bosco a broad smile and a laugh. “Good afternoon! Bosco, is it? How are ya?”
An internal struggle occurred within Bosco. He strangled his memory in the hope of gathering some sort of recollection. He received only the gurgle of indistinct images. “Who are you?”
“You don’t remember? It’s me, Greg.”
Bosco’s jaw clenched. He muttered, “It’s always a Greg.”
“Yeah!” the man said with a light laugh. “Greg the Warlock, from The Dragon Lush.”
Bosco breathed deeply through his nose. “Moment.” He ran into his kitchen and took a chilled bottle of Cinerator from the freezer, as well as a joint from a Ziploc baggy. He quaffed half of it as he made his way back to the front door, his clawed hand swiping a lighter from the side stand next to his couch. He lit it in front of Greg, still unaware of his swinging spelunker. As a bachelor, clothing was only reserved for company and the public. Usually.
Greg was about to speak, but Bosco cut him off with a freed finger from the bottle. He took a deep drag and blew the smoke from the sides of his mouth. The Greg was not worthy of an unsolicited shotgun.
Greg cleared his throat. “So . . .”
“WARLOCK!” Bosco boomed. “WHY IS THERE A GREG AT MY HOME?”
“Greg the Warlock,” Greg corrected.
“FUCKS NOT FOUND.” Bosco took a long hit, a gulp of cinnamon whiskey, stared at his joint, and washed the roach down with another gulp. He tilted his head from side to side for a bit. “So, what’s your business here, Greg?”
“Oh, I just wanted check up on you two and see how the ritual went.” He splayed a hand at Bosco’s physique. “I see you were quite busy with my wife and Zera!”
Bosco’s lip curled. “What are you pointing at?” He looked down and groaned at himself, his tail curling and bristling between his legs. He shoved the bottle against Greg’s chest. “Hold this.” He strode back to his bedroom, and with pinpoint accuracy, lunged for the clean pile of clothes on the floor. He had forgotten the last time he had opened his drawer. He was certain a spider metropolis had flourished within its confines.
Throwing on his boxer briefs, he noticed that Zera was not in the bed. “Zera!” He had to think on that. He remembered her name at least. He bolted from his bedroom and halted. The goat lady was wearing one of his oversized t-shirts. She was puffing on one his joints in the kitchen with an arm under her chest, her hip tilted to the side.
Bosco’s mouth gaped in horror. “Sasha’s kin.” He stomped toward Zera, much to Greg’s bemusement from outside. Standing face to face with her, Bosco roared, “WOMAN!”
Her claws snaked to Bosco’s jaw as she took another drag off the joint. She blew the thick plumes in his face and said in a low, rasped voice, “I’m. Standing. Right. Here.” She waggled his head and gave him a light bop on the nose. Bosco’s muscles tensed, teeth clenching. He raised a finger overhead, another roar bellowing up again. She tapped his fangs. “Inside voice.”
He tightened his lips in defeat. “I would have appreciated it if you had asked first.”
She opened his freezer and took out another joint. She waved it in front of his face, giving him an inquisitive look. Bosco’s nostrils flared. “Yes. Because I like you for some reason. You bitch.”
She grabbed a spare lighter off his counter and lit the Zig-Zag-bedecked happy leaf. “A bitch, huh? I’ll see your weed and raise you an asshole.”
“But didn’t you—”
“Context.”
“There’s a Greg at my door.”
Her eyes widened as she puffed on both joints. “Greg? Really?” She grabbed his arm and dragged him behind her with surprising strength. Bosco found himself glancing downward again. He wondered if the bouncy things on her rear were the reason he liked her. It couldn’t have been the fact that she was a possible psychopath and cultist.
He questioned his taste in women. He took another glimpse. He stopped questioning it.
They stood before Greg, waiting in expectation. Greg gave them another Caucasian-branded laugh, something like the sound of Michael Bolton and an electrocuted terrier. “Well, all seems to be well. My wife got home right on time, absolutely raved about the festivities.” He bobbed a finger at Bosco. “You’re a natural.”
“Wait,” Bosco said with outstretched hands. He curled his fingers at Zera. “Give it.”
She angled her head away. “Hey!” She gave him a light swat on his temple. “Nicely.”
Bosco struggled with that for a moment. “Please . . . you . . . beautiful . . . bitch-goat?”
Sighing in exasperation, she handed him one of the joints from her mouth. “I’ll take it.”
“Thank you. For my own weed. I think.” Bosco puzzled over his sudden manners, staring at the joint in suspicion.
Zera addressed Greg. “Hi, Greg. Your wife all right?”
“Never better,” Greg chirped. “I came to see how you all were doing. As for the wife, she felt a little bad. That backyard was an awful mess when she left.”
Bosco rolled the joint to the other side of his mouth. “My backyard?”
“Yes. Shame, too. She said it was a rather nice, well-kempt backyard.”
Zera leaned her head to the side. She asked Bosco, “Yeah, about that: why does the rest of your house look like a squatter’s anti-AA meeting compared to your backyard?”
“I LIKE TO WRIGGLE!” Bosco snarled. “I need even grass to do it. Consistent texture. On my back.”
“And what about the plants?”
Bosco shied away from her eyes. “Those are catnip. Wait . . .” He grabbed Greg by his collar. “What happened to my backyard?”
Greg, not realizing the implication of a 400-pound rakshasa with a murder gaze, gave him a playful clap on his shoulder. “You must have really hit the hard stuff last night. Here, I’ll walk you through what happened.” He gestured to the front door. “May I come in?”
Bosco looked back at his house. His head snapped back to Greg, a pronounced fricative coming from the tiger. "Fine." He released Greg, who gave him a light-hearted chuckle and walked past Bosco into the house. Bosco followed him with Zera in tow.
Greg wound his way around the bottles and pointed down the wood-paneled hallway. “Is it through here?”
“No.” Zera smacked his arm. Bosco mouthed, “What?” He relented and confirmed, “Yeah, through there.”
“Delightful!” Greg said with another one of his primo Caucasian cachinnations. He opened the screen door and waltzed out with his hands behind his back.
Hesitance faltered Bosco, but he had to get to the bottom of this. Or did he? He glanced at Zera. “Maybe this should wait.”
Zera pursed her lips at him. “Reminder: this was your idea, albeit one concocted while pissed out of your mind.”
Bosco sputtered his lips. “Right. Well . . .” He sauntered out of the mudroom. “I’m sure it was something involving the summoning of a giant ganja stem leading to a heaven of tits and Irish crème . . .”
He halted, his tail shivering. A long gasp came from him, followed by an uncharacteristic series of squeaks. Entwined around his wrought-iron fence were the entrails of various barnyard animals. The heads of the animals had been decoratively arranged atop the pikes of the fence, all staring at him in silent judgement. A pentagram had been burned within the center of the lawn.
A life-sized rubber ducky sat at the center of the pentagram. It was smiling at him.
Bosco found his speech. “MY LAWN!” He clenched his medium-length black hair, eyes watering in abhorrence and grief. “MY FLAWLESS LAWN!” He swung his finger at the lifeless heads. “WASTED PROTEIN!” He redirected his finger at the duck. “DUCK!”
Zera stood next to Bosco, her hand on his shoulder. “It looked pretty good before we got out here, hence the flattened spaces.”
Bosco shrilled as he took notice of them. It was like a crop circle of ass cheeks. Despite his ruined lawn, the duck drew his attention again. Breathlessly, he said, “Wait.” He turned to Zera. “Wasn’t it in the bedroom?”
“She,” Zera corrected, “probably wanted come fresh air.” She tapped her chin. “Or zie, I should say. Gender fluidity and all that.”
“WE’VE HAD ENOUGH GENDER FLUID!”
Zera’s head dipped in disbelief. “Wow. Any more out of the loop and you’d knot your own fuck.”
Bosco collected himself and pinched his brow. “Okay, okay, okay.” Grudgingly, he directed his words at Greg. “All right, it’s very obvious that I was uber drunk. That said, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little confused beyond all belief why . . .” He rolled his hand at the rubber ducky. “A gender-liquid, polymer avian devil is in the center of a pentagram. In my once flawless backyard.” He dropped to the ground and gingerly brushed an unsullied patch of grass. He whispered, “I’ll make it up to you.”
Greg said casually, “Oh, that’s fine. These decisions can be quite impulsive, especially under the influence.” He walked over to Bosco and patted his shoulder. “Well, in a nutshell . . .” Bosco rose and faced him. Greg continued. “You contracted a demon to take care of someone.”
Bosco choked. “Zera.”
“Mm?” Zera scratched his hair.
Solemnly, Bosco said, “Get us some joints.” Zera stood, unmoving. Bosco prodded her. “Please . . . pretty goat-bitch?”
“You can drop the ‘bitch’ now.”
“Please . . . goat . . . b-booby lady.”
Zera bobbed her head from side to side. “Progress.” She flicked his ear and went to fetch them.
Bosco tried to suppress the shivers that were permeating his body. He couldn’t think of anyone he’d want to kill, or why he’d go through all this. The plus side, he mused, is that he had gotten laid. By two women. This was good. His backyard, however, was a rotting butcher’s shop. This was bad. His comfy grass had been compromised. Also bad. Then there was the Greg.
“Who was it?” he asked the painfully albicant donner of Dockers.
Greg shrugged, his palms open. “Don’t know! Not my business arrangement.”
Bosco gritted his fangs. “Well metaphorically fuck me, who’s the doing the deed?” He regretted that exclamation. He furtively checked his rump for new pains.
Greg brought his legs together and flourished his arms at the rubber ducky. “Zie is right here.”
Zera returned with four joints in her hand. She tried putting two in Bosco’s mouth, but the tiger was in a temporary state of paralysis. “Bosco?” He didn’t budge. “Bosco.” There was a tic to his cheek. She reared back and smacked Bosco’s hindquarter. “BOSCO!”
The tiger guarded his butt and yelped, “NO TAGBACKS!”
Zera grabbed his chin and stuck the pair of joints in Bosco’s mouth, lit them, and patted him on his head before lighting her own. She took a drag and asked, “Well, are you going to talk to hir?” She speared a hand at the rubber ducky.
Bosco relented. He sat down before the Demon Ducky. Zera joined him, crossing her legs. The tiger took another toke. “So. Um. Hi.”
No response. Demon Ducky continued to smile.
“I, uh . . .” Bosco struggled for phrasing. “Had a crazy night, apparently. If you could just . . .” He waved his arms through the air. “I dunno, tell me who the target was? Because that would be just grand.”
Nothing. Nothing but judging, beady eyes. Bosco clenched the duck, his face gnarled with desperation and confusion. “TELL ME, YOU RANCID MATTEL RECALL! TELL ME!”
The duck’s eyes glowed as neon embers. “Your exhalations reek of brothels, booze, and zoos.”
The tiger vaulted, extremities splaying as he landed with an arched back. “I . . . what?”
Demon Ducky continued with a level, indifferent tone. “But I suppose such carnal excursions were necessary for summoning me. To Zera’s credit, it was the first time I witnessed an anthropomorphic goat decapitating her lesser kin as she used your scull like a Venetian rowing team. It was quite a feat of coordination.”
Bosco gulped and gaped at Zera. “My . . . skull?”
Zera remarked, “Both at one point.” She cleared her throat and explained. “Usually, death is a sufficient sacrifice for summoning certain demons, but things like wanton debauchery sort of garnish the whole thing. Throw in a warlock’s wife, and your demon popped in. That’s what Greg said, anyway.”
Bosco grumbled to Greg, “And you helped set this up? How was the wife involved?”
Greg, feigning sheepishness, bent his torso to the sides, another Greg-branded laugh coming from him, echoing across unseen water coolers. “Well, let’s just say that the wife and I are open. She’s genuinely curious about my work, and I figured ‘hey, two-in-one!’ Let the ol’ lady blow off some steam and give her a real perspective, you know? As for me, I have a Master’s in Demonology, and let me tell you, the student loans are steep but the field is lucrative. Don’t worry about paying me, though. This one was on the house. And the lawn!” He chuckled and slapped his knee. A nearby pigeon dropped dead from lethal honky exposure.
Bosco and Zera winced. The tiger turned his attention to Demon Ducky. “So, who was it? And why?”
Demon Ducky’s polymer body glowed with her apathetic words. “It is not proper business etiquette to ascertain the motive in these matters. As for the identity, that was disclosed to me discreetly upon my summoning, and I will adhere to such discretion in the presence of others.”
Bosco bit his lip. Gelid dread clenched his chest, though it still paled in comparison to the whipping Zera had given him. “So, have you done it?”
Demon Ducky didn’t speak for a moment. “As the human idiom goes: close, but no dildo.”
“Cigar.”
“Judging by last night’s performance, the disparity eludes me.”
Ignoring the remark, Bosco let out a drawn breath of relief. He wasn’t sure why uber-drunk-him would want someone dead, but he was glad it was foiled. “What happened?”
“The target in question would have been acquired were it not for some unexpected opposition from her friend: a female, reptilian version of your Rakshasa kind.”
Bosco’s fur raised. Demon Ducky could have been referring to more than one despite the disproportionate ratio of Echoes to humans. “Did you get a name?”
“Of the accomplice? No. She was a tall, bipedal reptilian with a mane of crimson quills and a physique made for decapitating men with her thighs. These attributes would have been for naught had she not been wielding an enormous, essence-imbued chainsaw to come to her friend’s aid. I was, for lack of a better word, deterred. Chainsaws are not supposed to be on fire.”
Bosco, at that moment, almost swore off drinking. Demon Ducky had to be referring to Raziela, the Amazonian, draconic all-bitch that accompanied Samael’s side. Samael was a demoness with a striking resemblance to Fairuza Balk, the difference being an affinity for lightning to the genitals. In his occasional side gig with the Deafeners, she was less a rival and more of a lethal bully. If they or the other Deafeners found out . . .
Zera gave Bosco a light smack on the jaw. “Bosco. Bosco, are you okay?” Bosco, with his mouth agape, squeaked and shook his head. Zera pressed, “What’s wrong?”
Bosco swallowed and whimpered. “Nope. No. It’s fine. She’s still alive.”
Zera raised her brow. “She?”
Bosco yawped. “It’s nothing! She means nothing! All this was a big misunderstanding!” Hysteric giggling issued forth. “All’s fuck that ends fucked! A dick in the head is worth two in the bush!”
Zera blinked languidly. “Bosco . . .”
“Killing two pussies with one—” Heavy pounding came from his front door. “FUCK ME!”
Zera turned toward the thudding of the front door. “Are you going to get that?”
“NO!” Bosco scrambled to her front and barred her. “Just . . . very vehement Jehovah’s Witnesses. Or Mormons. Mormon Witnesses.”
The pounding came again. Zera peered past him. “Whoever they are, I think they really want to see you.”
Demon Ducky spoke. “If my senses are correct, there is a dark entity behind that door, probably the—”
Bosco lunged and covered Demon Ducky’s bill. “It’s nothing,” he assured. He petted Demon Ducky, his strident voice failing to take on a calm tone. “Let’s just forget the whole thing.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Sorry.” Bosco stood and closed his eyes, breathing in the last of his joints. “Okay.” He spread his arms at the three. “Just stay there.” He did a quick jig, mouth stretching awkwardly into a pretense of calm. “And I’ll go see.” He maintained a false rictus as he made his way to the mudroom door. “See? No. Worries.”
Bosco turned his back to them, his back involuntarily hunching. He winced at each violent knock at his door. He kept halting, the knocks forcing his steps. One, two, three. Freeze. One, two, three. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened the door.
In any other circumstance, he would have been ecstatic to be in the presence of a Fairuza Balk lookalike in a crimson tube top with a matching open jacket and leggings. But this was not Fairuza Balk.
Samael was an Echo like him. In terms of power, she was a Class 2, only one rank from the demigod status of a Class 1. Bosco was Class 4.
The math didn’t favor him.
He mustered his best smile and opened his arms to her. “Hi, Sammy!”
She stuck a sharpened nail at his face. “Don’t you fucking call me that. Only people I like call me that to my face.”
Bosco flinched. “So, just Razzy then?”
She snatched his hair and roared in his ear, “ONLY I CALL HER THAT, YOU OVERPRICED FURSUIT!” She released him, huffed, and said in a neutral voice, “So. Business. I’ve been trying to call you since yesterday. Where the hell have you been?”
“Uh . . .” Bosco scratched the back of his neck. “Pulled a long shift at The Dragon Lush. Bunch of drunk eagle men came in screeching ‘′Murica’ waving around Desert Eagles. No subtlety, that kind. Absolute madness.”
Disbelieving, Samael scoffed. “Really? Would you mind if I called your boss to confirm that?”
Bosco’s boss, Devarious, was a jolly, giant Nephilim that at times could be denser than a neutron orgy. His only skills included combat and business, and he possessed unmatched proficiency in those areas. His other mental resources were scant. “Well, you could, but you know how active that man’s imagination is. Ask him now and he’d remember it as an eagle drive-by over Mordor to the tune of ‘America Fuck Yeah’.”
Samael cocked her head in consideration. “Mm. True.” She put her hands on her hips. “Do you know what happened last night?”
He told himself not to say it. He didn’t understand this indomitable urge incite the wrath of entities stronger than him. Perhaps he was a masochist and he didn’t realize it. It would explain the lashings. “You and Raziela finally built up the courage to express your true feelings to the tune of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Big Love’?”
Momentary blankness stole Samael’s features. Her hand shot out and clamped his groin. Bosco thought he should have been used to this at this point. His ensuing chipmunk expression indicated otherwise. Samael leaned and hissed, “I think someone tried to kill me last night.”
Bosco peeped, “Scandalous..”
“And the only reason I survived was because of the modified Stihl chainsaw Raziela borrowed from headquarters.”
“Hooray.”
“And while I have encountered demons off all shapes and sizes, it is the first time I have ever been assaulted BY A GIANT FIRE-BREATHING RUBBER DUCKY!”
“Quack.”
Samael sneered. “Why are you talking like—” She realized she was still holding Bosco’s scratching post and Bizzy Balls. “Oh.” She released him.
Bosco raised a finger, eyes wandering to the side. He held onto his door frame and vomited. After a few more wretches, he sighed and stood upright. He said in his normal, guttural voice, “Huh. My recovery time has gotten better.”
Samael’s sneer intensified. “You need to take this a hell of a lot more seriously. Someone making an attack on a Deafener means a hunt, and you might wind up being involved.”
“I DIDN’T DO IT!” Bosco covered his mouth, tail curling between his legs.
Samael rolled her eyes at him. “The hunt, dumbass. And don’t you wear clothing outside the—” She blanched, her face twisting in disgust.
Zera had emerged from the door, standing at Bosco’s side.
Samael said in disbelief, “Zera?”
Zera’s eyes bulged. “Uh, oh! Um, hi!” She added with slumped shoulders, “Sis.”
Within Bosco’s mind, some sense of mental survival was trying to press the realization down to no avail. It struck with the force of an existential horror-bomb, the shockwave leveling all sense of hope and happiness.
He knew.
He was fucked.
He made himself small behind the porch railing as the conversation between the two played out, lips tight as he stooped.
Gawking, Samael pointed at Bosco and Zera. “Did . . . did you . . .” She put a finger through the V of her other fingers. “Y-you didn’t, right?”
Zera averted her eyes from her sister. “It’d be, uh . . .” She approached her sister and turned the V upside-down. “Oh, and . . .” She flipped the V around. “Also . . .” She turned the V on its side. Samael’s mouth quivered as she withdrew her hand in aghast, staring at it. Zera winced, and mustering a smile, asked, “So how ya been?”
Samael stilled. She lurched and vomited. Zera moved to help her, but Samael outstretched a hand. It went on for nearly a minute, all the while Zera held her clasped hands to her chest, grimacing.
After it passed, Samael righted herself. She glanced at Bosco and Zera. Another quick gout of vomit issued from her. “Okay,” she wheezed, covering her mouth. “Think I’m good.” She shook and took a deep breath. “Now that that’s been etched into my goddamn brain, I’m going to deviate a bit and ask when the hell did you get a taste for Meow Mix?”
Zera glared at her older sister. “I don’t think you have any right to be judging my taste in men. At least I got his consent.”
“I DON’T DO THAT ANYMORE!” Samael fumed, her arms crossing. “My current employer has some rigid rules involving humans.”
“Oh,” Zera said, feigning interest. “So now you have to have things like empathy, amicability, not resorting to shoving pencils in their—”
Samael shushed her. “That was a bett— bad time in my life. I’m different now. Under threat of death.”
“Oh,” Zera said, raising her eyebrows. “Under threat of death. Hm. I’m sure your past excursions had nothing to do with that.”
“Shut it, Zera.”
“It’s for the best, I suppose. I don’t have to help clean up the aftermath of your ‘boyfriends’ anymore. I bet your snuff porn collection is extensive.”
Samael’s lip curled. “If you weren’t my sis I’d cunt-punch you where you stand.”
“I’m sure that friend of yours is very receptive to that.”
“ZERA!”
“SAMAEL!”
Bosco crouched behind his porch. While Zera’s full power hadn’t been revealed to him, he didn’t want to between her and Samael in the event that they unhinged. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a choice.
Zera sucked her teeth and beckoned Bosco from his hiding place. “Bosco! Get down here!”
Bosco popped his head out, his ears flicking. “I don’t wanna.”
“Bosco!” She planted her hoof and pointed at the spot next to her.
Bosco skulked from his hiding place. With a downcast head, he sided next to Zera. She hugged him to her side, muzzle furrowing at Samael. “I don’t know what history you two have, but whatever it is, it ends now.” She gave him another reaffirming squeeze. “I call bitch-dibs.”
Bosco squinted at that. “What kind of double-standard she-tyranny is that?”
Zera glanced upward at him. “The kind with the whip.”
Bosco had mixed feelings regarding that remark. He supposed he had experienced worse under less appealing conditions. Samael had electrocuted his genitals too many times to count, and he had never once been permitted entry with his lightning rod. In comparison, Zera had to be the sweetheart of the demonic family, and far less conductive.
It dawned on him then: the two had inadvertently created a distraction from his impending incrimination. If he could keep the two preoccupied with their own rivalry, he could make it out of this with nary a shock or claw to the groin. “Well.” Bosco stretched and put his arm around Zera. “You heard her, Sammy. Guess you could say I’m a part of the family.” He emphasized, “Sis.”
Bosco expected a nosebleed from Samael, perhaps an aura of electricity that impotently reached for him. She did not react.
Bosco’s fur raised.
Languidly, Samael’s head leaned to the side. He wondered if it would complete an entire rotation. In a placid voice, Samael said, “Bosco.”
Bosco gulped. “Huh?”
Samael tilted her head to the other side. “I really, really hope for your sake that you two have a long-lasting, wonderful relationship. It’d be a real shame if I were to pick up the phone and hear my dear sister — in tears — talking about how some drunk will-be rug broke her heart. If such a thing were to happen, I’d be compelled to assuage her anyway I can.” She stepped to him and lightly slapped his cheek with her words. “Any. Way. I. Can.”
Bosco’s face twisted into something reminiscent of impending doom. “You just want an excuse to kill me, don’t you?”
“No!” Samael said with a toothy smile. “I’m not allowed to kill a fellow Deafener.” She snatched his ear and jostled his head. “But being your superior, I am obligated to train you.” She flicked his nose, the tiger wincing. “So, with that on your mind, I’m just going to go ahead and let you two have your . . .” She had to swallow back another bout of nausea. “Private time.” She licked the foul taste of the thought off her teeth. “Yeah, I’m just gonna go now.”
Zera gave Samael a lethargic wave. “Bye, sis.”
“Whatever,” Samael spat. “Try to find a better plowshare next time. I seriously hope you’re infertile because I don’t even want to imagine the— OH GOD! CAT-GOATS!” She threw her hands up and stomped off to her van, seething curses and growls as she climbed in.
Bosco and Zera turned their heads at the van’s departure. Bosco had to keep himself from fainting in relief. The revelation of Zera’s relation to Samael was a curious one, one that he had to ask about. “So, you’re her sister?”
Zera gave him a crooked frown. “Do you perpetually exist in a buffering state?”
“No, no, just . . . what’s up with thee, uh . . . ‘not looking anything like your sister’ thing?”
Zera sputtered her lips. “It’s a demon thing, or type of demon thing. She’s older now, so she’s settled into her form. Mine’s still in flux, though I rarely change it.”
“Please don’t.” Bosco rubbed his brow. “That woman has put me through all manner of hells. I don’t need the topless rendition of her belting my chest with a bottle of Glenlivet in the other hand.”
Zera looked back at the house. “Wait, where’s Greg and Demon Ducky?”
Bosco’s head jolted up as the earth beneath him shook. He and Zera exchanged a fearful stare before bolting into the house toward the mudroom exit. Bosco threw the door open.
A ebony and ivory dragon emerged from a fiery dimensional rift in the center of his backyard. Sitting on his haunches, the two-story dragon craned his head down as he listened to the words of Demon Ducky. Greg stood off to the side, his recurring grin radiating with the curse of a thousand-fold “Full House”.
Bosco, all too familiar with the dragon, bellowed, “Mitch! What in the Bad Dragon fuck are you doing in my yard?”
Mitch took offense to that, the dragon pouting. “Hey! I’m not bad! My boss even gave me a hot wing milkshake as a treat!” He put a paw to his chest and raised his horn-maned head. “It’s been my 30th day of hobo abstinence, thank you kindly! I should get a coin! The kind with the chocolate in the center. Crunches well with the aluminum texture.”
Zera, nonplussed at this point, asked Bosco, “How many high-powered Echoes do you know?”
Bosco huffed, “Enough to keep me drinking into the afterlife.” He asked Mitch again, “What are you doing in my backyard?”
“Well,” Mitch said with an upturned paw, “Demon Ducky had some trouble honoring your request, so instead of wasting all this residual summoning energy, he/she ducky brought me here, even though I could have just teleported.” He shrugged. “Saves me the mind power. Nasha says I need to preserve as much of it as possible. I tried plugging a USB into my ear to recharge, but I don’t have the right port.”
Zera asked Bosco, “Nasha?”
“His boss.” Bosco said to Mitch, “At least it wasn’t your ass.”
Mitch giggled. “Silly plushy, donkeys don’t need USB chargers.” He tapped his chin in sudden wonder. “Or do they?” He shook his head, and taking notice of Zera, beamed and waved at her. “Hi goat plushy!” He approached her and sniffed, much to her discomfort. “Huh. You kinda smell like my uncle’s room after he’s had a bunch of lady friends over.” He sniffed again. “And wet cat.” He thinned his violet eyes at her. “You haven’t been drowning any cats, have you?”
Zera cleared her throat. “Not the way you’re thinking. Look, Mitch, whatever Demon Ducky told you, just . . .” She shooed the thought away. “Put it aside. You seem like the, uh, innocent type. You don’t need to get involved.”
Mitch shook his head to his words. “No can do.” Proudly sitting on his haunches, he looked off into the distance. “I wouldn’t be much of a friendly dragon to plushy if I didn’t help him with delicate matters such as this.”
Zera mouthed to Bosco, “Plushy?”
Bosco waved it off. “Mitch, just forget it. I was drunk and made a poor choice.”
Mitch’s eyes glazed. “I fail to see the difference.”
“I told you, forget it.”
Mitch sighed and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know why you’re so worried, plushy. It’s not like I’m going to kill her.”
Bosco went blank. He quacked, “What?”
“Yeah,” Mitch assured, “I’m just gonna deck her in the flux capacitor.”
Zera went blank. She quacked, “What?”
Mitch didn’t bother with further details. “No time! If she’s vehicularly enabled, then I gotta go before she reaches 88 miles per hour, then I’ll never find her because she’ll be on Thor’s lightning bolt.” He gasped. “Oh! New fanfiction idea! Anyway, later plushy!” He patted Bosco’s horns and swiveled his head to Zera. “Later plushy’s soon-to-be ex!” He petted her and gently pinched her cheek. “You’re such a cute goat. Ba-a-a-ah, bah!” He shot into the air, his wings cracking the sky as he sought Samael.
Bosco and Zera stood in a daze. The power of speech evaded them for a spell. Bosco revolved his head to Greg. “You mean to tell me that I went through all this just to summon a demon to kick someone in the lady nuts?”
Greg grinned, the cheese from said grin capable of inducing cardiac arrest. “That’s the gist of it, yeah!”
“And through all that, the avian hell spawn couldn’t bill her in the goods?”
Demon Ducky glowed with indignance. “Bitch, you crazy. Dragon lady had a flaming chainsaw.”
Bosco grunted. “All right. I’m going to kindly request that you two get the fuck out of my backyard before I smite the last vestiges of shit out of the both of you.”
Greg put his hands up. “Whoa, now! I can take a hint. But what do you mean by ‘smite’?”
Bleary-eyed and annoyed, Bosco brought up his forearm. An azure shield of essence manifested, crackling with brighter bolts. “This is my backhand. Would you like to meet backhand? Because backhand wants to meet you.”
Greg gaped at Bosco’s display of power. “Neato!”
The corner of Bosco’s lip twitched. “‘Neato’ is not the word of choice. Your words of choice should be ‘oh dear, I should leave the pissed-off Rakshasa’s abode before he turns my asshole into a prolapsed triangle’.”
Greg lightheartedly surrendered and made his way to the mudroom door. “Okeydokey, then! Hey, thanks for entertaining the wife. Try not to drink so much time though, eh? Gotta mind the liver.”
Bosco reared his arm back, the aegis’ energy intensifying. “LEAVE!”
Greg put some endangerment pep in his step and left the domicile. Bosco turned his violent intent toward Demon Ducky. “Did you not clean the spunk from your ears? I said ‘get’!”
Demon Ducky radiated with snark. “Those were not your exact words, and unlike Greg, I do not possess a sphincter for you to prolapse.”
“Then why are you still here?”
Demon Ducky was silent for a moment. “To quote urban slang, ‘that shit be dank’.”
It took Bosco a few seconds. “YOU SMOKED MY WEED TOO?”
“It added an aura of calm to the decapitated goat heads. I imagined them whistling the Andy Griffith theme song.”
“You are fucked!”
“Coming from the Rakshasa that ordered a groin-hit on his girlfriend’s sister.” Bosco’s mandible nearly detached itself from his face. Demon Ducky smarmed, “To quote a once popular television program, ‘Oops, did I do that?’ Addendum: trololololololol.”
Bosco reluctantly met Zera’s eyes, the aegis extinguishing. Her eyebrow had never been so arched. “Did you really go through all that just to have someone kick my sister in her crotch?” He responded with a squeak. She shifted on her hooves. “Were you going to tell me at some point?”
Bosco’s ears flattened with another squeak.
Zera exhaled through her nose and tossed her hair back. “How do you think that makes me feel?”
Bosco managed to squeal out a barely comprehensible, “I don’t know.”
Zera looked down, her upper lip stiffening. She shrugged. “I was expecting worse, actually.”
Bosco’s teeth clicked together. “What?”
“Well, yeah,” Zera said, scratching the back of his neck. “I know how my sister can be. I mean, I would have probably force fed you your own balls had you put out an actual hit on my sister, but this in comparison seems . . . almost humorous.”
Bosco’s ears were still back, his face in a grimace. “I’m scared.”
“Oh, don’t be.” She patted his head. “It’s probably something I would have done; dark lord knows what’s she done to your chew toys.”
Bosco’s ears pricked up. “My chew toys? Did you—”
“I knew you were made of tougher stuff when you didn’t protest. That, or famished. Anyway, this was all ultimately harmless, except for the goats. Unless . . .” Her claws sank into Bosco’s arm, her voice guttural. “That dragon’s not going to do any serious damage, is he?”
Bosco winced at Zera’s unnervingly strong grasp. “M-mitch? No. Hell, knowing him, he might hug her after the fact.”
“So, my sister’s not going to need hospitalization?”
“Nah. Samael’s just going to get a bit of perspective. In the lady nuts.”
She locked eyes with him. She grunted and released him, rubbing his arm. “I’ll take your word for it. Thank you for not trying to kill my sister.”
“Well,” Bosco admitted, “she is a colleague, even if she doesn’t have any concept of pulling a punch. Between my job at the Deafeners and the Dragon Lush, an assassination would pretty much fuck all job prospects.”
Cocking her head at him, Zera put a hand on her hip. “Huh. You’re almost not a complete drunken cat in an asshat.”
Bosco tried pocketing his hands. Much to his embarrassment, he was still in his briefs. “Uh, since you’re not going to castrate me with that scythe, could we do something else?”
Zera canted her head at Demon Ducky. “What about hir?”
Demon Ducky emitted a blinding glow. “Silence.” The glow dimmed. “The goats are singing ‘Mr. Sandman’..”
Bosco’s frustration grew. “Are you going to leave?”
Demon Ducky flared with demonic radiance. “I said silence, feline. They’ve somehow segued into ‘Rock Lobster’. Their musical sorcery knows no bounds.”
“Whatever. Just lay off my weed.”
“Make like Jethro Tull and blow me, fur-fuck.”
Bosco and Zera shook their heads and found shelter in the house. Zera circumvented the stray bottles, an impressive feat considering Bosco’s floor was a landmine of malt liquor vessels.
A strange feeling seized Bosco. Abashment creased his forehead. “Guess it’s too late to say ‘sorry about the mess’.”
Zera gave the place a quick scan and shrugged. “Eh, looks like my place on the weekend.” She cast a suspicious look at him. “You do clean at some point, right?”
“Enough to prevent the inadvertent production of penicillin.”
She gave him a pensive nod. “So, there is a standard of cleanliness. It’s actually an improvement compared to some of exes.”
Bosco stalled at the implication. “Wait. Um. I’m confused. How do you do the thing?”
“What thing?”
“The thing that happens when we brutalize each other’s genitals and don’t hate each other afterward?”
Zera’s eyes widened at Bosco’s incredible cluelessness. “That depends. Do you want to keep seeing me?”
Bosco’s lips pursed to the side as he thought. “Both brains are in agreement. They approve of you. Do, uh . . . your brains agree?”
Zera’s incredulity lingered. “That metaphor doesn’t quite work with females, but yeah, I think they do. I’m not quite sure why, but yeah. Any plans later?”
Bosco bit his lower lip, a grin slithering across his muzzle. “Well, I have all this liquor that needs to be drunk. And further testing of my new harvest. And of course, it’s necessary to distribute even wear on the bed frame. And—”
Zera squeezed his mouth shut. “You have the subtlety of Gallagher in a melon genocide, but a nice balance of asshole and aspiring somewhat nice person. Somewhat.” She let go of his snout and put a finger on his nose. “You intrigue me, Deafener Bosco. I will tolerate you for an indeterminate amount of time.”
Bosco’s scowled and crossed his arms. “Tolerate?”
She snorted and gave him a light slap across the cheek. “Don’t have a bitch-fit. I was joking with you.”
“I can fit a bitch.”
Zera smiled wryly at him. “Well, if you’re going to be like that . . .”
The sound of wheels and flapping wings shrieked and boomed outside. Bosco and Zera tore across the living room and opened the front door. Samael’s van barreled down the residential area, her open window permitting clear audio of her profuse cursing. Behind her and airborne, Mitch pursued, his high tenor screaming after her. “Sammy! Look! It’s nothing personal! I promise I won’t tail you too hard! Oh!” The dragon waved as he past Bosco and Zera. “HI PLUSHY AND BAH-BAH PLUSHY! I’LL VISIT LATER!”
Bosco and Zera turned their heads in Mitch’s direction. With a sigh, Bosco said, “He meant what he said.”
Zera smacked her lips. “He sounds nice enough. Bosco?”
“Yeah?”
“How often does that dragon visit?”
“Not often, which is worse than never.”
“Ah.” She folded her arms beneath her chest and tapped her hoof.
Bosco asked in earnest, “You worried about her?”
“No.” She pressed her tongue against the inside of her cheek. “Think we have ten minutes?”
“I’ll take it.”