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“Ahem?”
“What?”
“You don’t really expect me to hang out in this hairless carcass, do you?”
I removed a set of sweatpants from the bag and rose again with a sigh. “We’ll be right back.”
Carrying the cat under one arm, I made my way through the crowd toward the bathrooms. Ignoring the speculative glances from the females in line for the ladies’ room, I went to the men’s door. I pushed it open and tossed the cat and the pants inside. Leaning against the wall, I crossed my arms. “Giguhl change forms,” I called out loud enough to be heard inside to the john.
Two seconds later a pop sounded. Green smoke wafted under the door, bringing with it the scent of rotten eggs and urinal cakes.
“What the f**k!” a deep male voice shouted from inside. “Keep that thing away from me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Giguhl responded in a bored tone. “You couldn’t handle The Pitchfork.”
The door burst open and a very large, very pissed-off werewolf exited. As the door swung closed, I was treated to an unsavory view of naked demon ass as Giguhl pulled on his sweatpants. And here I was thinking I was clever for making him change forms in the bathroom. If I didn’t know better I’d think Giguhl enjoyed flashing me. Which was likely, considering he was a Mischief demon.
Two seconds later, the seven-foot-tall, green-scaled, black-horned demon emerged. He wore a pair of faded black sweatpants that ended a good six inches above his hooves. He looked ridiculous, but it was better than sitting next to a naked demon all night.
“Did you have to antagonize the werewolf?” I asked.
“That’s a rhetorical question, right?”
I rolled my eyes and pushed his shoulder. “C’mon, the show’s starting soon.”
As we walked back to the booth, I bumped shoulders with a familiar mage. He stopped when he recognized me. “Oh, sorry, Sabina.”
I waved away his apology. “Hey, Marty. No worries.”
“What up, homeslice?” Giguhl raised a claw to high-five the mage, who we knew casually from around Prytania Place. He was some sort of low-level administrator for the Council, but a nice enough guy.
Marty smiled and slapped Giguhl’s claw. “You up for another round of hoops, G? I want a chance to win back that twenty you took off me last time.”
“You’re welcome to try,” Giguhl said, and laughed.
We said our good-byes to Marty and headed back to our seats. Cinnamon, one of Slade’s nymph waitresses-slash-prostitutes, had delivered our drinks while we were gone. Giguhl dropped onto the bench and chugged down half his beer. When he paused for a breath, a loud belch escaped his black lips.
“Nice, G.” Adam raised his own drink to cover his smile.
“I can’t help it,” the demon said. “I’m so nervous for Pussy Willow.”
“Why?” I asked. “She performed all the time in New Orleans.”
Giguhl shot me a bitch-please look. “Yeah, but that was lip-synching. She’s been practicing her vocals but she’s still really nervous.”
“Wait,” I said. “You mean she’s actually going to sing?” I exchanged a worried look with Adam. He shook his head slightly. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought there might be a very good reason PW used to lip-synch during her drag shows.
The demon nodded and took a nervous sip of his beer.
“So how’s the Roller Derby stuff going, G?” Adam asked, deftly changing subjects before Giguhl could work himself up into a frenzy like an overprotective stage mother.
Giguhl sat forward, warming up to the new topic. “Pretty well. I’ve recruited six chicks so far.”
Up until a few weeks earlier, Giguhl had been the reigning champ of Demon Fight Club. The setup had been simple: Two demons faced off in a fight pit located in Vein’s basement. But an incident involving a Lust demon and a mage with attention deficit disorder brought that to a screaming halt. Luckily, I’d missed that ordeal, but according to Giguhl, the whole thing was quite upsetting. “Sabina, some things cannot be unseen,” he’d said. Apparently, several of Vein’s patrons agreed and Slade was forced to shut down DFC for good.
Never one to let a little difficulty prevent him from making a fast buck, The Shade, as Slade was known in the Black Light District, started looking for new ideas to entertain his customers. Giguhl suggested he bring Pussy Willow up from New Orleans to sing at the club one night a week. The suggestion hadn’t been without ulterior motive. Ever since we’d returned to New York, Giguhl had been moping about missing the changeling.
When she arrived, Pussy Willow admitted she’d been looking for a chance to get out of the Big Easy. “Everyone there still thinks of me as Brooks,” she’d said. “Even Zen had a hard time remembering I’m a full-time lady now.”
Brooks was the changeling’s given name. He used to live his life as a full-time male and part-time drag queen. But after an attack by a group of crazy cult members, Brooks had decided he felt safer behind a wig and stilettos. That’s when he became Pussy Willow full-time. And, since everyone in New Orleans knew Brooks, the changeling believed coming to New York would give her a chance at a fresh start among people who didn’t know her past.
“I feel just like Mary Tyler Moore,” she’d exclaimed the night she arrived. “And Giguhl is my Rhoda.”
Anyway, after the success in bringing Pussy Willow up, Giguhl went to Slade with the Roller Derby idea after watching some movie. And that’s when the idea for Hell on Wheel’s Roller Derby Night was born.
I leaned forward to look past Adam at my minion. “I didn’t realize you were already recruiting for the team.”
The demon nodded, his enthusiasm palpable. “I convinced Slade to host the first match here next week.”
I blinked. “Wow. How many team members do you need total?” This wasn’t an idle question. Ever since he’d first brought up the idea of putting a team together, I’d been waiting for my invitation.
“I’d like ten. That way we’ll have plenty of subs. So far I have three mages, two of Slade’s nymphs, and, of course, Pussy Willow.”
“No vamps?” I asked. “Or weres?” I added at the last minute so it wouldn’t look like I was digging.
Giguhl pulled the label off his beer bottle and started shredding it. “That’s the problem. I don’t know any vampires in the city. And all the weres I know are dudes.”
