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I bought a white chocolate mocha and slid into the chair opposite her. "Good morning," I said.
She looked me over, noting the glamour. "And a good night?"
I shrugged. "Okay night."
"You ready to meet the Army of Darkness?"
"Sure. I-wait. What did you say?"
"The Army of Darkness. That's what the cult calls itself."
"They know that's a movie, right?"
She shook her head. "Honestly, it's hard to say. They may have named themselves after the movie, for all I know."
"This is so absurd as to be unreal," I told her. "It all sounds like a joke."
"If only," she muttered. "Believe me, I'll be glad when you get rid of them. Aside from the fact that Cedric makes me talk to them, I have to file a ream of paperwork each time they do something stupid. It's really stressing him out. I keep trying to get him to do relaxation exercises, but he won't."
Her tone sounded genuinely concerned, almost as though she worked for Cedric out of true loyalty, rather than the forced servitude the rest of us bowed to.
"Well, I'll see what I can do. Don't you guys have a succubus up here? Why isn't she working this group over?"
"She's busy seducing the premier. Cedric didn't want her distracted."
"Whoa," I said. It had been centuries since I'd had the initiative to go after a major politician. "I feel like a slacker."
Kristin cut me a look. "Mostly I hear that you're a troublemaker."
"I like to think I'm just misunderstood."
She snorted. "We're all misunderstood. You have no idea how many times people try to use that as a reason to break their contracts."
Between mourning Seth and being the target of Jerome's annoyance lately, I'd had little time to think about much else. Kristin's words suddenly triggered a memory, one I'd tried to keep buried for some time now.
"How many times do people try to break their contracts over an error?"
When Niphon had been here last winter, he'd gone to great pains to complicate my life and get me recalled to Hell. Since he'd been the one to trick me into selling my soul so long ago, I had plenty of reason to hate him. But why he'd hate me and want to ruin me? That had been-and still was-a mystery. Hugh had speculated that when an imp went to that much trouble to mess with their acquisition, there was usually a reason-specifically, a potential problem with the original contract.
My casual air didn't fool Kristin. "You think there might be an error in yours?"
I kept my nonchalance. "Hugh-my imp-thought there could be. But he wouldn't look it up." His refusal to help me still stung.
"He's smart. Looking into others' contracts can get us in big trouble. The vaults of Hell are not a place you want to get caught snooping around in. It would take a lot to get an imp to risk that."
I had no proof, but something told me that Kristin was older and higher-ranking than Hugh and that she might have more access than he did. I smiled sweetly. "What would it take for you to risk that?"
"Nothing you can offer." She flashed me a wry grin and slipped on sleek Oakley sunglasses. "Come on. Let's get this over with."
We ended up at a house out in suburban Vancouver. It was a lower middle-class area, not particularly polished but not the kind of place you had to worry about getting mugged either. Kristin parked on the street and led me up the house's driveway, her heels clicking on the concrete. Along the sides of the yard, someone had recently planted marigolds and geraniums.
She rang the doorbell, and a moment later, a man in his mid-twenties answered the door. He had messy black hair, like maybe he'd just woken up, and possessed the friendly, low-key feel of someone who worked at Home Depot or Circuit City.
"Hey, Kristin," he said, voice cheerful and blasé. "Come on in."
She stepped just inside the doorway, and I followed, offering the guy a friendly smile of my own. "I can't stay," she told him crisply. "I'm just dropping her off. Evan, this is..."
Kristin glanced at me, apparently waiting to see if I wanted to use my own name. I usually used different identities and shapes when seducing victims, but it didn't seem worth it for this.
"Georgina," I supplied.
"Georgina," said Kristin. "This is Evan." He and I shook hands. "Georgina's one of the founders of a sister chapter in Seattle. She's here to see how things are done and possibly form some connections between the groups." She tipped her head down, looking at him over the tops of her sunglasses. "I want you to show her every courtesy and involve her in your activities. It's very important."
He nodded, still looking mild and pleasant-but a little nervous at the strictness in her voice. "Absolutely." Cedric had said Evan knew Kristin was a power player on Team Evil, and he clearly seemed to respect her. She supposedly didn't have the people skills to "deal with" this group, but from the way Evan regarded her, it didn't seem like it'd take much to get his attention.
To me, Kristin said, "Call a cab when you're done. We'll expense it."
With that, she headed back out to her car, leaving me with the alleged general of the Army of Darkness.
"You want anything to drink?" he asked, stifling a yawn. "I've got some RC in the fridge."
"No, thanks. I'm just anxious to learn how you do things up here."
He grinned. "Sure. I should probably show you the temple first."
I glanced around, taking in the flowered sofa and grandfather clock. "Temple?"
"Yeah, it's in the basement. You sure you don't want something to drink?" There was nothing I wanted to drink that was under 80 proof, so I declined once again.
He led me down some rickety steps, pulling a chain at the bottom that turned on a bare lightbulb. We stood in an unfinished basement with rough cement floors and brick walls. Fold-up chairs were arranged in a semicircle around a low bookcase about as high as my waist. On top of the case was a propped up painting with an angel's black silhouette set against a gray and purple nebula. It looked like it had come straight off a sci-fi novel's cover. Half-burned red and black candles were scattered around the painting, along with an inverted cross. Off to the side of the room, more candles sat on top of a washer and dryer. Evan walked over to a light switch and turned it on. White Christmas lights twinkled to life on the brick walls.
"Wow," I said. My astonishment was not faked.
"We aren't finished setting up here," he said modestly. "We have to change our location a lot to avoid discovery. You know how it is. So, there's still some stuff we need to unpack." He pointed over to a cardboard box in the corner. I couldn't see all of its contents, but I did make out a black feather boa and a glow-in-the-dark plastic skull. On the side of the box, black marker succinctly declared: TEMPLE STUFF .
I counted the chairs. Fifteen. "How many members do you have?" I asked.
"About a dozen. A little less than that that are truly active." He sat down in one of the chairs and gestured for me to do the same.
"And how long have you been meeting?"
"Oh, about a year now."
I smiled, turning on the charm in an effort to not sound like an investigative reporter. "I've heard about some of the things you've done. Pretty impressive. Like the Bibles and the, um, spray paint."
He beamed at the praise. "You heard about that? Cool. We do as the Angel of Darkness directs us."
"What other things have you been directed to do?"
"Well, there was the one time this Methodist church was having an ice cream social. We broke in beforehand and left all their ice cream outside the freezer to melt."
"Uh-huh."
"Then, this other time, we went to the petting zoo and hung pentagram collars on all the goats. We also painted their horns red and black. Let me tell you, that wasn't easy. They don't like to stand still."
"Uh-huh."
"Oh, and then we made all the TVs show Rosemary's Baby ."
"Uh-TVs?"
"Yeah, I work at Circuit City, and we have these big walls of TVs, so I synced them all up. My boss never suspected who did it."
On and on the litany went. About ten minutes later, I interrupted, unable to listen to any more. "Look, Evan, this is really amazing stuff you've been doing. I mean, this is stuff my people in Seattle would never, ever dream of doing in a million years."
